GENTILISM: 


RELIGION 


PREVIOUS  TO 


CHRISTIANITY. 


BY 

REV.  AUG.  J.  THEBAUD.  S.  J. 

' 


NEW   YORK: 
D.    &    J.    SADLIER    &    COMPANY, 

81    BARCLAY    STREET. 
1876. 


ENTERED  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1875,  by 

D.  &  J.  SADLIEB  &  COMPANY, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


EDWARD  O.  JENKINS, 

PRINTER  A.\D   STERKOTYPER, 

•A)  North  WUllmrn  Street.  N.  V. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

PREFACE,  -    v.-xv. 

CHAP.  * 

I.  Introductory  remarks  on  the  Earth,  its  position  and 
configuration  as  proofs  of  design  (I.);  on  the  uni- 
formity of  nations  in  primitive  times  (II.);  °n  the 
obstacles  they  met  against  the  preservation  of  their 
traditions  (III.),  1 

II.  The  supposed  Barbarism  of  primitive  man, 60 

III.  Aboriginal  religion  obscured  or  destroyed  by  pantheism 

or  polytheism  in  Hindostan 106 

IV.  The  primeval  religion,  and  its  decline,  in  Central  Asia 

and  Africa 177 

SECTION    I.    Central  Asia  Ibid 

SECTION  II.  Africa — Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  202 

V.  Religion  in  Pelasgic  Greece 272 

VI.  Introduction  of  Idolatry  in  Heroic  Greece 312 

VII.  Hellenic  Philosophy  as  a  channel  of  Tradition 363 

VIII.  The  Greek  and  Latin  Poets  as  guardians  of  truth 393 

IX.  Supplementary,  on  the  primitive  religion  in  \Vestern 
Asia:  Chaldaea,  Phoenicia,  Syria,  and  Arabia;  on 
the  superiority  and  influence  of  Hebrew  Monothe- 
ism ;  on  what  is  known  of  the  religion  of  Turanian 
Races , 436 

APPENDIX  1 489 

APPENDIX  II 503 

INDEX..  513 


PREFACE. 


THE  great  question  between  the  friends  of  revealed  religion 
and  its  opponents  has  always  been,  more  or  less,  a  question  of 
origin.  -  For  it  is  the  special  character  of  our  Holy  Scriptures 
that  every  thing  in  them  is  precise,  and  asserted  in  clear  terms. 
In  the  boldest  flights  of  poetry  our  inspired  prophets  never 
contradict  for  an  instant  the  positive  statements  of  our  sacred 
annalists  and  historians.  In  this  the  authors  of  the  Bible  differ 
essentially  from  all  other  ancient  writers  on  cosmogony  and 
the  origin  of  mankind.  Hence,  in  conformity  with  their 
narrative,  man  cannot  be  supposed  to  have  appeared  on  earth 
millions  of  years  ago ;  and  thus  is  found  an  occasion  of  attack. 

The  chronology  of  Holy  Writ  is,  it  is  true,  to  a  certain  de- 
gree, elastic.  The  Church  has  never  adopted  any  system  on 
the  subject ;  and  her  children  are  free  to  place  the  first  appear- 
ance of  man  in  creation,  at  any  period  they  choose  consistent 
with  any  one  of  the  various  authorized  versions  of  Scripture ; 
and  if  there  is  any  question  fairly  raised  between  reverent  and 
orthodox  exegetists  on  the  sacred  text,  any  one  is  at  liberty  to 
adopt  the  system  which  refers  to  a  higher  antiquity  the  moment 
of  inception  in  the  history  of  man.  It  is,  morever,  understood 
by  all  that  what  precedes  this  solemn  moment  remains  in  Holy 
Writ  without  real  chronology,  and,  consistently  with  orthodoxy, 
any  length  of  time  can  be  assigned  to  the  formation  of  the 
globe  itself  and  to  the  successive  creative  acts  related  in  the 
first  twenty-five  verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis. 

But  it  is  clear  that  the  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  ap- 
pearance of  man  cannot  be  of  an  indefinite  duration.  Conse- 

(v) 


VI  PKEFACE. 

quently  the  opponents  of  revelation  have  always  tried  to  give 
him  an  antiquity  which  cannot  be  reconciled  with  the  state- 
ments of  the  Bihle.  Already  in  the  time  of  Origen — the  third 
century  of  our  era — Celsus  "  produced  from  history,  other  than 
that  of  the  divine  record,  those  passages  which  bear  upon  the 
claims  to  great  antiquity  put  forth  by  many  nations,  as  the 
Athenians,  and  Egyptians,  and  Arcadians,  and  Phrygians,  who 
assert  that  certain  individuals  have  existed  among  them  who 
sprang  from  the  earth,  and  who  adduce  proofs  of  these  asser- 
tions ;  and  he  said  that :  '  The  Jews,  leading  a  grovelling  life 
in  some  corner  of  Palestine,  and  being  a  wholly  uneducated 
people,  not  having  heard  that  these  matters  had  been  committed 
Jto  verse  long  before  by  Hesiod  and  innumerable  other  inspired 
men,  wove  together  some  most  incredible  and  insipid  stories, 
etc.' "  (Adversus  Celsum,  Lib.  IY.,  cap.  xxxvi.)  Edition  of 
Anter.Nicene  Fathers. 

From  the  time  of  Celsus  down  to  our  own,  therefore,  this 
has  been  a  standing  objection  against  the  revealed  Word  of  God. 
And  all  know  the  extraordinary  efforts  made  last  century  to 
prove  by  the  records  of  India,  Egypt,  Greece,  and  many  other 
ancient  nations,  that  man  must  claim  an  antiquity  of  hundreds 
of  thousands  of  years.  But  all  those  labors  of  erudition  and 
criticism  have  been  reduced  to  naught,  in  our  days,  by  the  al- 
most precise  dates  assigned  by  modern  critics  to  the  real  origin 
of  all  nations.  There  are  only  a  few  Egyptologists  who  dare 
yet  to  believe  in  some  of  those  fabulous  stories.*  The  fact  is, 

*  Among  recent  writers  on  the  subject,  Sir  John  Lubbock,  in  his  "  Pre- 
historic Times,"  is  one  of  the  most  notorious.  In  his  disappointing 
chapter  on  the  "  antiquity  of  man  " — disappointing,  because  treating 
chiefly  of  the  "  antiquity  of  the  globe  "  according  to  geologists — he  states 
several  facts  to  which  he  gives  a  meaning  of  his  own,  when  many  others 
could  as  well  be  suggested.  The  chief  one  regards  the  excavations  made 
near  the  base  of  the  huge  statue  of  Rameses  II.,  at  Memphis.  It  seems 
that  Mr.  Horntr  found  a  "piece  of  pottery"  at  the  depth  of  thirty-nino 
feet,  and  Sir  John  Lubbock  forthwith  concludes  that  man  existed  in 


PEEFACE.  VU 

that  neither  in  the  numerous  most  ancient  records  of  Ilindo- 
stan,  nor  on  the  monuments  of  Egypt,  nor  anywhere  else,  can 
there  be  found  any  positive  proof  of  such  extraordinary  an- 
tiquity, for  the  simple  reason  that  all  Southern  and  Eastern 
nations  paid  no  regard  whatever  to  chronology ;  and  nothing, 
either  in  their  writings  or  on  their  monuments,  can  indicate 
positively  the  succession  of  time.  All  that  modern  antiquarians 
have  to  do  is  to  establish  a  relative  antiquity  among  them, 
without  being  able  to  assign  a  starting-point.  Thus  the  wise 
among  modern  scientists  have  altogether  abandoned  the  idea  of 
looking  into  those  records  for  what  cannot  be  found  there.  The 
truth  is,  as  we  have  already  observed:  The  Bible  is  the  only 
book  of  real  antiquity  which  is  precise,  and  deals  in  positive 
assertions.  And  this  circumstance,  whilst  it  affords,  in  fact,  a 
great  presumption  in  favor  of  its  truth,  supplies  enemies  with 
a  strong  motive  for  assailing  it. 

The  proceedings,  therefore,  of  those  who  wish  to  distinguish 
themselves  by  endeavoring  to  place  revelation  in  antagonism  to 
science,  have  taken  an  altogether  new  direction.  They  have, 
we  may  say,  abandoned  history  and  the  study  of  the  oldest  ex- 
isting monuments,  which  are,  in  fact,  in  open  opposition  to  their 
theories,  and  they  think  they  will  find  in  natural  science  the 
antagonism  they  are  in  search  of.  Hence  the  celebrated  theory 
of  "  evolution."  They  imagine  they  can  prove,  not  only  for 
other  organized  beings — which  might  be  granted  them — but 
even  for  man,  what  seems  to  be  the  fact  for  inorganic  matter, 
chiefly  for  the  frame-work  of  our  globe :  a  gradual  develop- 

Egypt  13,000  years  ago.  But  suppose  that,  before  erecting  such  an  im- 
mense colossus,  the  Egyptians  dug  down  forty  feet,  to  find  a  sure  founda- 
tion below  the  alluvium — builders  of  astronomical  observatories  go  some 
times  as  deep  to  secure  their  telescopes  against  exterior  motion — in  such 
case  can  we  not  suggest  that  some  unlucky  workman  may  have  let  fall 
there  a  "piece  of  pottery,"  the  innocent  cause  of  so  many  speculations? 
Should  this  suggestion  not  be  admissible  in  the  present  case,  many  others 
can  be  offered. 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

ment ;  in  this  case  an  evolution  from  aerial  vapor  to  tlie  solid 
and  diversified  crust  of  our  dwelling.  But  we  are  sure  they 
cannot  do  so  for  man. 

First,  Science  is  not  yet  on  their  side  altogether,  with  re- 
spect to  the  origin  and  essential  nature  of  species;  and  the 
number  of  men  learned  in  natural  history  who  have  not  been 
convinced  by  all  the  facts  accumulated  by  their  chief  leader, 
Mr.  Darwin,  is  yet  a  stumbling-block  to  the  universal  acceptance 
of  the  system.  We  have  no  fear  that  further  discoveries  wi  1 
demonstrate  the  soundness  of  their  views.  We  think,  on  the 
contrary,  that  as  Lamark,  who  first  broached  the  theory  on  a 
large  scale,  remained  finally  without  almost  any  followers,  so 
likewise  those  who  now  have  revived  his  enterprise,  will  see 
behind  them  a  scanty  number  of  fervent  disciples,  when  the 
ardor  always  natural  to  a  new  system  shall  have  cooled. 

"We  must,  however,  leave  the  discussion  of  the  subject  to 
special  writers,  who  have  made  these  studies  the  object  of  their 
life.  Some  have  already  appeared  worthy  of  respect.  Others 
will  follow,  to  bring  on  the  usual  triumph  of  truth. 

Meanwhile,  in  our  opinion,  the  historical  treatment  of  the 
subject  ought  not  to  be  discarded.  It  ought,  on  the  contrary, 
to  be  more  insisted  upon  than  ever ;  for  human  history  cannot 
contradict  natural  science,  and  what  it  obliges  us  to  accept,  has 
to  be  accepted.  It  is  true,  the  gentlemen  who  give  to  man  a 
really  fabulous  antiquity  altogether  unacceptable  to  Christians, 
imagine  they  can  place  themselves  in  a  position  of  safety  with 
respect  to  the  direct  testimony  of  history,  by  the  assertion  that 
man  could  not  have  annals  nor  monuments  when  he  was  yet 
unconscious.  For,  in  their  opinion,  the  natural  passage  by  evo- 
lution of  the  ancestors  of  man  from  the  original  "  protoplasm  " 
to  the  state  of  a  well-developed  "ape,"  must  have  required 
millions  of  years  of  complete  unconsciousness ;  and  how  many 
ages  more  must  have  been  necessary  for  a  "  Simian  anthropoid  " 
to  acquire  the  art  of  sharpening  flint  into  an  arrow,  and  a  stick 


PREFACE.  IX 

of  hard  w«d  into  a  spear,  not  to  mention  the  farther  greater 
progress  supposed  by  the  invention  of  a  covering  of  leaves  for 
their  nudity  ?  During  all  this  time,  of  course,  the  ancestors  of 
man  were  absolutely  "unconscious^'  And,  finally,  the  com- 
menceme.nt  of  "  records,"  rude  at  first  and  of  the  simples* 
kind — first  proof  of  real  "  consciousness  " — supposes  another 
long  series  of  years.  This  we  find  substantially  in  an  article 
of-  the  North  American  Review,  for  October,  1S73.  The  con- 
clusion is  that  historical  times,  the  only  ones  which  we  can  dis- 
cuss, have  been  preceded  by  long,  long  ages  which  give  alto-*, 
gether  the  lie  to  the  Bible  of  Jews  and  Christians. 

This,  of  course,  supposes  that  the  whole  system  of  evolution 
has  been  proved  without  fear  of  contradiction.  This  will 
scarcely  be  maintained  by  even  the  most  fervent  "  scientists." 
And,  what  is  more,  we  will  venture  to  assert  that  such  a  dem- 
onstration never  will  be  forthcoming.  But  we  will  not  insist 
on  this.  Our  purport  is  very  different — we  say :  We  assert, 
that  if  things  had  taken  place  as  the  evolutionists  assure  us  they 
have,  the  first  records  of  mankind  would  be  those  of  rude  people 
just  emerging  from  barbarism.  In  poy|£  of  art  and  culture,  in 
point  of  ideas  and  language,  chiefly  in  point  of  religion,  we 
should  find  in  their  social  state  the  most  rude  elements  of  a  "child- 
ish" and  "  growing  "  soul ;  we  should  be  able  to  trace  the  steps  by 
which,  from  the  first  notions  of  a  coarse  religious  system,  they 
would  have  arrived  at  the  point  of  inventing  God  and  aH  Sis 
attributes.  This  would  have  been  in  the  sense  of  evolutionists 
a  mere  subjective  theory  perfectly  independent  of  any  objective 
Divine  Essence,  and  having  nothing  in  common  with  th%  cer- 
tain belief  that  the  reason  of  man  can  know  God  and  demon- 
strate to  himself  Hi  a  existence.  They  assert  it  has  been  so,  and 
that  historical  man  began  everywhere  by  being  a  barbarian. 
Here  we  join  issue  with  them,  and  one  of  the  great  purports 
of  this  volume  will  be,  to  establish  solidly  the  fact,  that  man 
appeared  first  in  a  state  of  civilization,  possessed  of  noble  ideas 


X  PREFACE. 

as  to  his  own  origin,  the  Creator,  One  Supreme  G^,  ruling  the 
universe,  etc.  We  intend  to  prove  historically  that  he  invented 
none  of  the  great  religious  and  moral  truths  by  the  process 
mentioned  above;  but  that  these  came  to  him  from  heaven. 
We  will  endeavor  to  show  the  first  men  everywhere,  monothe- 
ists,  generally  pure  in  their  morals,  dignified  in  their  bearing, 
and  cultivated  in  their  intellect.  Should  this  be  well  and 
firmly  established,  the  whole  monstrous  system  of  man's  evolu- 
tion falls  to  the  ground.  Still  "more  will  this  be  the  case  if  it 
'be  proved,  besides,  that  the  supposed  "  continuous  progress," 
w  which  is  the  main-stay  of  their  theory,  is  a  dream,  a  non-entity ; 
that  on  the  contrary  man  everywhere  progressed  in  the  wrong 
direction,  going  from  monotheism  to  pantheism,  from  this  to 
idolatry,  and  from  this  last  to  "  individualism  "  in  religion  ;  that 
this  seems  to  be  the  law  which  has  governed  mankind  until  the 
Redeemer  happened  to  bring  back  man  to  truth,  and  to  found 
at  last  a  true  and  strict  religious  society,  not  confined  to  one 
nation  like  Judaism,  but  universal. 

Progress  is  a  fine  and  catching  word,  but  its  greatest  admirers 
are  themselves  bound— to  confess  that,  historically,  it  has  been 
distinguished  by  many  an  overthrow  ;  the  edifice  in  process  of 
Construction  has  often  crumbled  into  ruins,  and  the  savage 
Goth  has  spurned  with  his  foot  the  graciously-moulded  Grecian 
Vtatue,  the  last  and  perfect  expression  of  art.  No  sensible  man 
can  admit  a  "  continuous  progress  "  in  history.  Yet  is  it  of  the 
nature  of  evolution  to  be  "  continuous,"  since  history  cannot 
contradict  natural  science.  If  evolution  is  once  interrupted,  it 
ceases  entirely  to  be,  and  must  start  afresh.  But  we  intend  to 
go  much  farther  than  this,  and  to  prove  our  previous  assertion  : 
that  nations,  after  having  reached  a  certain  point,  always  "  pro- 
gress backward,"  and  lose  gradually  the  steps  in  advance  they 
had  made.  This  at  least  seems  to  be  the  historical  law  for  the 
times  anterior  to  Christianity. 

As  we  treat  chiefly  the  religious  question,  this  will  appear 


PREFACE.  XI 

very  distinctly,  we  hope,  in  these  pages,  and  independently  of 
the  antagonism  sensible  men  always  feel  for  system-mongers. 
The  matter  we  treat  of  has  a  peculiar  interest  of  its  own,  which 
of  itself  is  calculated  to  attract  the  serious  attention  of  the 
reader. 

There  is  an  obvious  want  even  in  the  actual  forward  state  of 
historical  studies  of  a  simple,  easily  understood,  concrete  view 
of  the  origin  of  the  false  religions  >rhich  have  afflicted  man- 
kind. Many  notions  on  the  subject  are  afloat,  but  they  are 
vague,  shifting,  and  unsatisfactory.  A  thorough  investigation 
of  this  question,  it  is  true,  would  require  immense  develop- 
ments ;  and  we  intend  to  devote  to  it  only  a  few  pages.  But 
at  least  a  comprehensive  compendium  will  not  be  worthless,  if 
it  is  clear  and  firmly  grounded. 

Gentilism,  in  fact,  has  remained  until  our  days  in  a  state  of 
hopeless  confusion ;  and  the  author  of  "  Gentile  and  Jew  "  has 
not  in  the  least  rendered  the  subject  clearer.  We  have  not 
the  presumption  to  lay  claim  to  more  erudition  than  is  con- 
tained in  the  above-mentioned  work,  nor  even  to  as  much.  But 
we  complain  that  the  reader  rises  from  its  perusal  not  one  whit 
more  enlightened  on  the  subject  of  the  origin  and  growth  of 
the  whole  delusion  than  when  he  commenced  it.  Now  we 
think  that  something  at  least  can  be  said  on  a  subject  at  once 
so  instructive  and  so  interesting.  And  it  is  time  to  say  it. 
For  this,  we  will  call  to  our  help  what  we  know  of  antiques ; 
and  by  its  aid  {&>ne  endeavor  to  explain  the  enigma  of  the 
origin  of  error.  On  our  way  we  may  investigate  some  celebrated 
myths  on  which  we  think  a  flood  of  light  has  been  thrown  by 
late  investigations.  The  greater  number  of  them,  however, 
are  quite  without  any  such  illumination,  and  thus  we  leave  them 
in  their  obscurity. 

The  valuable  discoveries  lately  made  in  the  antiquities  of  In- 
dia, Bactriana,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  render  possible  such  a  short 
work  as  we  undertake.  It  would  have  been  little  more  than 


Xll  PEEFACE. 

theoretical  some  fifty  years  ago.  By  these  discoveries  the  range 
of  Geutilism  has  been  greatly  extended.  Formerly,  scarcely 
anything  was  understood  by  the  word  but  what  came  to  us  from 
Greece  and  Borne.  Now  the  whole  Gentile  world,  chiefly  the 
central  part  of  it,  Hindostan  and  Egypt,  has  to  be  included ; 
and  as  in  this  study  each  part  helps  the  whole,  the  actual 
knowledge  we  have  of  India  and  Central  Asia  throws  a  flood 
of  light  on  the  mythology  of  Egypt  and  Greece.  Many  things, 
in  fact,  which  could  not  be  known  to  the  Greeks  of  the  age  of 
Pericles,  which  were  perfectly  unknown  to  the  Romans,  which 
were  scarcely  and  dimly  seen  fifty  years  ago,  are  now  clear  and 
palpable ;  and  the  sure  derivation  of  truth  and  error  from  the 
east  and  north  towards  the  west  and  the  south  must  be  now  con- 
sidered as  a  fact  above  possible  contradiction. 

When  the  antiquities  of  Europe  alone  were  known,  or,  rather, 
when  people  thought  they  knew  them,  many  important  points 
remained  almost  completely  in  the  dark.  One  of  these  among 
others  deserves,  so  early  as  this,  a  rapid  mention.  The  starting- 
point  of  humanity  from  light  and  culture,  and  not  from  dark- 
ness and  savageiy,  could  scarcely  be  explained  satisfactorily,  be- 
cause of  the  long  ages  during  which  our  European  ancestors 
had  been  plunged  in  comparative  barbarism,  or,  at  least,  in  what 
was  thought  to  be  such.  The  clear-speaking  sacred  books  of 
India  have  removed  in  great  part  the  difficulty,  and  the  result 
h^been  a  reflected  light  on  the  west,  enabling  us  to  appreciate 
much  better  the  "heroic  ages"  of  Hellas.  |jpven  t)ne  numer- 
ous tribes  of  barbarians  of  the  north,  who  destroyed«the  Roman 
power,  could  not  have  been  so  rude  in  their  beginnings,  as  when 
they  swarmed  into  Europe ;  for  their  languages,  as  well  as  many 
traditions  preserved  among  them,  show  manifestly  that  they 
came  originally  from  a  centre  of  light,  and  that  the  condition 
in  which  they  were  when  they  invaded  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Greece 
was  not  their  primitive  state,  but  had  been  gradually  produced 
by  that  historical  law,  to  which  we  have  alluded,  by  which  na- 


PREFACE.  Xlll 

tions  left  to  themselves  naturally  degenerate  and  fall  into  gross 
superstition  and  degftded  customs. 

Hence,  we  hope  to  be  able  to  give  a  completely  different  turn 
to  the  myth  of  Prometheus,  who  was  supposed  to  have  invented, 
to  the  profit  of  mankind,  the  art  of  speech — nay,  reason  and 
memory,  as  well  as  the  use  of  fire,  and  of^  more  comfortable 
dwellings  than  caves  and  holes  underneath  the  ground.  ^Eschy- 
lus,  we  shall  see,  had  no  real  conception  of  the  great  truths  con- 
cealed under  the  noble  allegory  which  he  produced  so  splendidly 
on  the  Grecian  stage  ;  and  that  poet  was  probably  the  cause  of 
the  common  error  of  many  subsequent  authors,  who  represented 
man  as  at  first  feeding-  on  acorns  and  addicted  to  all  the  instincts 

o 

of  the  brute.  We  never  find  such  myths  in  the  oldest  poems 
or  compositions  of  the  Far  Orient.  There,  on  the  contrary,  it 
is  always  the  reign  of  the  gods  on  earth,  the  happy  life  of 
JZishis,  of  patriarchs,  of  men  nourished  intellectually  by  the 
sublime  effusions  of  the  noblest  upanishads,  and,  physically,  by 
the  luscious  and  abundant  fruits  of  a  teeming  and  friendly  earth, 
We  will  try  to  find  out  which  of  the  two,  the  East  or  the  West. 
is  more  likely  to  have  spoken  the  truth.  This  is  the  problem 
in  its  simplicity. 

Those  who  will  condescend  to  read  this  work  ought  not,  how- 
ever, to  expect  a  complete  demonstration  as  strict  as  that  of  a 
mathematical  theorem.  Many  reasons  confined  us  within  nar- 
row limits ;  and  historical  deductions  are  not  susceptible  of  the 
dogmatism  leading  to  the  absolute  and  final  Q.  E.  D.  We  hope, 
however,  to  establish  that  the  balance  of  probability  is  found 
overwhelmingly  on  the  side  herein  advocated ;  and  that  the 
contrary  position  may  be  considered  as  decidedly  untenable.  It 
will  be  for  Christians  merely  a  confirmation  of  what  revealed 
truth  says  with  much  more  authority  and  innate  power. 

A  last  remark  of  consequence,  in  conclusion,  is  that  the  sub- 
ject, most  important  and  interesting  in  itself,  possesses  besides 
this  advantage,  that  it  is  the  natural  prelude  to  considerations 


XIV  PREFACE. 

of  a  far  higher  import.  In  studying  the  religious  aspect  of  the 
world,  during  several  thousand  years  of  Gentilism,  we  are  neces- 
sarily attracted  by  the  grand  spectacle  offered  to  our  view  when, 
at  the  end,  the  decomposition  of  all  previous  religious  principles 
took  place,  to  make  room  for  another  pouring  out  of  divine 
effulgence,  to  last,  this  time,  forever ;  when  the  loss  of  those 
truths  first  communicated  by  heaven  to  mankind  was  amply 
compensated  by  a  far  higher  and  nobler  revelation ;  and  when, 
at  the  very  moment  of  almost  complete  darkness,  light  broke 
out  afresh  more  brilliantly  than  ever,  not  to  be  obscured  any 
more,  because  the  torch  was  intrusted  to  the  hands  of  an  infal- 
lible guide. 

The  bright  form  of  the  Catholic  Church  arises  on  a  sudden, 
in  the  midst  of  universal  darkness ;  and  the  infinite  boon  con- 
ferred on  man  by  the  Divine  Redeemer  is  appreciated  with  a  ten- 
fold delight,  because  it  comes  unexpectedly  after  so  many  ages 
of  doubt  and  error.  Gentilism  becomes,  thus,  the  natural  in- 
troduction to  the  study  of  the  new,  complete,  final  revelation 
which  followed  it.  Religion,  invested  henceforth  with  the  per- 
manent characters  of  universality,  perpetuity,  and  holiness,  takes 
from  the  start  the  guidance  of  the  world,  never  to  lose  hold  of 
the  reins,  in  spite  of  all  obstacles  and  of  millions  of  enemies. 
.  TVTiere  is  the  pen  that  can  adequately  describe  that  sublime 
straggle,  which  has  now  lasted  more  than  eighteen  centuries  ? 
"What  power  of  description  is  equal  to  such  a  theme  ?  Where 
is  that  master  of  language  who  shall  narrate  in  fit  terms  the 
'  gradual  spread  of  heavenly  truth  to  the  utmost  bounds  of  the 
earth — embracing  all  nations,  all  races,  all  tribes — and  making 
one  family  of  mankind  ;  victories  without  number  over  a  pow- 
erful and  hostile  world ;  and  Christian  holiness  subduing  the 
passions  of  men,  and  establishing  on  earth  the  peaceful  reign 
of  virtue? 

The  subject  is  so  vast  and  of  so  exalted  a  nature,  as  to  inspire 
with  fear  the  heart  of  any  one  who  should  make  the  "bold  at- 


PREFACE.  XV 

tempt.  Be  ours  the  more  modest  task  of  describing  the  times 
which  preceded  Christianity.  There  was  no  Church  then  ;  at 
least,  no  universal  Church  claiming  the  love  and  homage  of  all 
mankind ;  it  was  only  the  conflict  of  unorganized  truth  with  all 
the  passions  of  man  and  all  the  fury  of  hell.  The  result  was 
unavoidable :  Truth  could  not  stand ;  Error  and  Yice  were  des- 
tined to  conquer.  Not  so  now,  thank  God  !  The  World  has 
now  the  Church  to  contend  against,  and  the  Church  is  stronger 
than  the  World. 


GENTILISM: 

RELIGION 

PREVIOUS  TO  f 

CH  RISTIAN  IT-Y. 


GENTILISM, 


CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS  ON  THE  EARTH,  ITS  POSITION  AND  CONFIGURA- 
TION AS  PROOFS  OF  DESIGN  (I) — ON  THE  UNIFORMITY  OP  NATIONS  IN 
PRIMITIVE  TIMES  (II)— ON  THE  OBSTACLES  THEY  MET  TO  THE  PRE- 
SERVATION, OF  THEIR  TRADITIONS  (III). 

Domini  est  Terra  et  pleniludo  tjus. — Ps.  xxlii. 

WHAT  can  be  the  object  of  our  globe  as  it  is  fashioned  ?  How 
is  it  adapted  to  human  society?  "Was  it  made  originally  for  one 
universal  race,  having  but  one  religion — or  the  reverse  ?  How 
did  the  actual  obstacles  to  the  primitive  plan  originate  ?  What 
must  have  been,  therefore,  the  first  state  of  society  and  religion 
on  its  surface  ?  And,  finally,  how  does  revelation  agree  with  rea- 
son and  history  on  the  subject?  These  are  the  momentous 
questions  we  propose  to  ourselves  on  the  very  threshold  of  our 
investigations.  We  do  not  intend  to  treat  them  exprofesso  in 
this  first  chapter.  But  in  it  we  shall  confine  ourselves  to  throw- 
ing out  in  broad  outline,  by  way  of  assertion,  the  several  propo- 
sitions which  the  remainder  of  the  work  will  be  devoted  to 
establishing.  The  rest  of  the  work  will  afterwards  fill  up  and 
corroborate  what  we  have  sketched  in  advance,  and  make  it,  we 
hope,  clear  and  evident. 

Our  chief  object  is  to  show  that  man  really  came  from  heaven, 
and  did  not  receive  his  being  from  the  development  of  an  inf e 
rior  species.  And  a  few  preparatory  observations  will  not  be 
misplaced  on  the  relations  which  God  established  originally  be- 
tween Himself  and  the  inhabitants  of  our  globe,  after  the  fall. 

(l) 


2  GENTILISM. 

to  prepare  them  for  the  fulness  of  redemption  and  the  bonds 
of  a  higher  uniformity. 

The  configuration  of  the  globe,  the  unity  of  the  human  race, 
the  same  language  for  all,  the  same  primitive  traditions  given 
to  all,  would  seem  to  indicate  that  the  intention  of  Providence 
was  to  keep  them  united,  and  chiefly  under  the  control  of  the 
same  worship.  This  was  to  be  the  form  of  universality  in  the 
.  patriarchal  period,  or  rather  until  the  Saviour  should  appear 
and  call  all  mankind  to  Himself — cum  exaltatus  fuero,  omnia 
traham  ad  meipsum. 

This  plan  of  God  was  frustrated  at  the  dispersion  of  nations. 
Henceforth,  we  say,  the  ocean,  the  large  rivers,  the  chains  of 
high  mountains,  and  the  deserts  spread  here  and  there  over  the 
globe,  became  obstacles  to  intercourse,  owing  to  the  social 
breaking  up  which  then  took  place.  And  thus,  the  configura- 
tion of  the  globe,  instead  of  facilitating  universal  communica- 
tion among  men,  was  turned  into  a  hindrance,  or  rather  into  an 
almost  insurmountable  barrier.  The  primitive  language  was 
replaced  by  a  large  number  of  idioms,  many  of  which  had. 
scarcely  any  root!  in  common.  To  the  unity  of  'origin  and  of 
species  succeeded  the  diversity  of  races,  a  source  of  untold  di- 
vision. Finally,  the  primitive  traditions  were  soon  obscured, 
and  were,  at  length,  disfigured  by  the  grotesque  mythologies 
and  absurd  philosophies  which  then  became  prevalent  to  such 
an  extent,  that  only  the  faintest  traces  of  them  could  be  de- 
tected in  the  mass  of  gross  inventions  which  had  buried  them 
out  of  sight,  and  those  only  here  and  there.  Thus,  what  we 
may  call  Patriarchal  Catholicity,  disappeared;  chiefly  owing 
to  a  complete  want  of  a  central  authority,  for  direction  and 
counsel  even,  which  the  existence  of  the  Synagogue  among  the 
Jews  was  not  intended  to  furnish.  Such  are  our  preliminary 
assertions. 

But  we  must  go  a  little  more  into  detail  before  we  advance 
beyond  our  preparatory  observations. 


INTEODUCTOBY. 


I. 


And  first,  "What  does  our  globe  itself  tell  us  of  its  own  con- 
formation, and  how  does  the  revealed  Word  of  God  explain  its 
object  ? 

"  There  are  men  of  our  generation,"  says  a  sagacious  writer 
in  the  Dublin  Review  (July,  18Y3,  page  67),  "for  whom 
this  world  is  only  one  of  innumerable  planets,  careering  through 
space  without  any  particular  object ;  while  its  inhabitants  are, 
more  or  less,  intelligent  animals,  who  know  neither  whence  they 
come  nor  whither  they  are  going." 

In  spite  of  all  the  discoveries  in  modern  science,  it  may  be 
said,  that  the  number  of  such  men  as  these  increases  every  day ; 
and  we  are  fast  going  back  to  the  period  anterior  to  Christian- 
ity, when  the  most  important  problems  of  human  destiny,  often 
agitated  by  philosophers,  had  not  yet  reached  the  first  rational 
solution.  Our  globe  is  now  much  better  known  physically; 
yet  the  moral  ignorance  of  some  learned  men  is  as  great  as  ever, 
with  respect  both  to  man  himself  and  to  his  dwelling  religiously 
considered.  It  is  true,  this  is  considered  by  them  as  out  of  the 
pale  of  science,  but  is  it  so  really  ? 

Revelation,  we  assert,  has  long  ago  solved  even  the  physical 
problem  most  satisfactorily  to  human  reason,  as  well  as  to  hu- 
man conscience,  and  given  us  facts  which  true  science  has  noth- 
ing to  do  but  to  register.  But  its  light  is  precisely  the  guide 
which  many  refuse  to  admit.  Unable  to  quench  it,  they  re- 
move it  from  the  sphere  of  their  vision;  and  thus,  groping  in 
the*  dark,  they  pretend  that  the  utter  obscurity  of  the  divine 
splendor  is  the  most  sure  means  of  finding  their  lost  way.  We 
assert  that  the  revealed  word  of  God  was  not  certainly  given  to 
teach  us  science ;  but  that  not  a  single  phrase  of  it,  rightly  un- 
derstood, can  be  opposed  to  true  science,  and  that  there  is  much 
in  it  which  has  anticipated  science. 


4  GENTILISM. 

Many  ardent  investigators  of  human  knowledge  in  our  days 
imagine  that,  because  revealed  truth  does  not  satisfy  an  idle 
curiosity,  and  contents  itself  chiefly  with  giving  us  the  informa- 
tion required  for  the  fulfilment  of  our  eternal  destiny,  no  ray 
of  light  is  thrown  by  it  on  external  creation ;  arid  that,  what- 
ever it  says  of  the  origin  of  our  dwelling,  of  its  object  in  the 
mind  of  God,  and  of  the  ways  of  Providence  in  its  very  his- 
tory, is  an  absurd  legend,  worthy  only  of  affording  amusement 
to  children  in  the  nursery. 

Yet,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  the  solution  it  gives  to  the 
physical  problem  even  of  this  earth,  is  the  only  one  that  can 
satisfy  rational  beings  ;  and  any  one  who  does  away  witli  it,  or 
refuses  to  take  an  account  of  it,  has  nothing  to  fall  upon  but 
crude  conjectures  ending  in  materialism  or  scepticism.  Hence 
all  the  absurd  cosmogonies  which  have  ever  been  imagined, 
from  the  time  of  the  first  Hindoos  or  Greeks  to  our  own.  At  a 
period  of  time  before  any  other  writings  now  extant,  Holy 
Scripture  gave  to  man  the  noblest  and  justest  idea  of  the  im- 
mensity of  creation,  and  of  the  position  of  the  earth  in  the  phys- 
ical heavens  ;  m  and  modern  astronomers  'cannot  expect,  by  all 
their  labor  and  discoveries,  to  do  more  in  noticing  the  gen- 
eral aspect  of  the  whole  exterior  creation  than  comment  on  the 
sublime  imagery  of  Job,  who  wrote  in  the  time  of  Moses,  if  not 
before. 

For  whatever  may  have  been  the  individual  thoughts  of  the 
time  prophets  of  God,  whatever  sense  they  may  have  personally 
attached  to  the  words  they  uttered,  the  words  themselves  had  a 
deep  meaning,  intended  surely  by  the  Divine  Kevealer  to  illu- 
mine the  future  discoverers  of  His  laws,  and  show  them  that 
whatever  they  might  discover  He  had  created.  Happy  they, 
should  they  pay  attention  to  it !  Hence  when  Moses  repre- 
sented the  Almighty  creating  light  by  His  great  fiat,  before  he 
had  launched  into  space  the  bright  orb  of  the  sun,  he  may 
have  continued  to  imagine  that  it  was  the  sun  itself  which  emit- 


LNTEODUCTOEY.  5 

ted  the  effulgent  rajs  of  light;  but  He  had  used  an  expres 
sion  on -which  men  might  long  afterwards  ponder,  and  which 
God  alone  could  at  the  time  utter ;  He  had  asserted  the  crea- 
tion, at  the  beginning,  of  the  imponderable  ether  from  which 
light,  and  heat,  and  electricity  must  come. 

Of  the  same  nature  are  the  astounding  questions  proposed  by 
the  Almighty  to  Job,  (Ch.  xxxviii.,  19,  24):  "Where  is  the 
place  where  light  dwelleth,  where  is  that  of  darkness  ?  .  .  .  . 
By  what  way  is  light  spread,  and  heat  distributed  upon  the 
earth  ?"  Should  the  prophet  of  the  land  of  Hus  have  dared  to 
open  his  lips  when  God  spoke,  he  might  have  found  the  answer 
easy,  and  replied :  "  Light  dwelleth  m  the  sun  and  stars,  and 
darkness  wherever  they  do  not  shine.  Light  is  spread  by  that 
dazzling  globe,  and  from  its  fiery  furnace  heat  is  distributed 
upon  the  earth."  But  God  would  have  repeated  what  He  told 
him  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  (v.  2)  :  "  Who  is  this  man 
that  wrappeth  up  sentences  in  unskilful  words  ?"  and  Job,  no 
doubt,  did  not  make  the  reply  previously  supposed,  as  he  knew 
his  own  ignorance  in  the  presence  of  Eternal  Truth ;  and  he 
acknowledged  humbly  that  what  appeared  to  him  easy  of  an- 
swer was  in  fact  unknown  to  him,  since  God  said  so ;  and  that 
in  spite  of  the  testimony  of  his  eyes,  light  and  heat  might  come 
from  another  source  than  the  sun  and  stars. 

After  light  itself,  the  innumerable  bodies  destined  to  set  it 
in  motion  through  space,  are  described  in  Holy  Scripture  with 
such  a  splendor  of  expression  that  never,  either  before  or  after, 
has  the  ear  of  man  heard  such  glowing  and  eloquent  words  on 
so  august  a  subject.  Compare  with  it  the  low  and  ridiculous 
ideas  all  the  Greek  physical  philosophers,  with  the  exception, 
perhaps,  of  Pythagoras,  had  of  the  visible  heavens ;  remember 
that  one  of  the  boldest  among  them  thought  he  would  astonish 
his  hearers  by  asSerting  that  the  sun  was  as  large  as  Pelopon- 
nesus, and  read  Job  afterwards.  The  only  license  we  shall 
allow  ourselves,  will  be  to  place  in  a  new  juxtaposition  the 


f>  GENTILISM. 

various  verses  of  the  sublime  38th  Chapter,  which  relate  to  the 
great  subject  under  consideration.  "  Who  can  declare  fhe  order 
of  the  heavens,  and  who  can  make  the  harmony  of  heaven 
sleep  ?  (by  interrupting  it)."  "  Tell  me,  if  thou  knowest  all 
things :  where  does  light  dwell,  and  where  is  the  place  of  dark- 
ness ?  That  thou  may'st  bring  everything  to  its  own  bounds, 
and  understand  the  paths  of  the  dwelling  thereof."  How 
could  the  immensity  of  creation  be  better  expressed  than  in 
making  it  co-extensive  with  light  itself  ? 

Job  had  already  said  of  God  (CL  ix.,  v.  8)  :  "  He  alone 
spreadeth  out  the  heavens,  and  walketh  upon  the  waves  of  the 
sea."  "  He  made  Arcturus,  and  Orion,  and  the  Hyades,  and 
the  constellations  of  the  far  south" — un visible  to  us  and  to 
Job.  "  He  doeth  things  great,  and  incomprehensible,  and  won- 
derful, of  which  there  is  no  number."  But  God  with  a  far  greater 
majesty,  exclaims  (Ch.  xxxviii.,  v.  31)  :  "  Shalt  thou  be  able  to 
join  together  those  shining  stars,  the  Pleiades  ?" — by  reducing 
to  naught  the  space  between  them — "  and  canst  thou  stop  the 
turning  about  of  Arcturus?"  "Where  wast  thou  when  the 
stars  praised  Me  on  the  morning  of  creation,  and  all  the  sons  of 
God  sang  for  joy  ?"  "  Didst  thou  even  since  thy  birth,  com- 
mand the  morning,  and  show  the  dawning  of  the  day  its  place  ?" 
"  Canst  thou  bring  forth  the  day  star  in  its  time,  and  make  the 
evening  star  to  rise  upon  the  children  of  the  earth  ?"  "  Dost 
thou  know  the  order  of  heaven,  and  canst  thou  set  down  the 
reason  thereof  on  the  earth  ?" 

In  vain,  we  think,  would  all  the  literature  of  Rome  and 
Greece,  of  the  Far  Orient  and  mysterious  Egypt,  be  searched  for 
a  single  phrase  containing  at  the  same  time  as  much  truth  and 
as  much  poetry. 

Alexander  von  Humboldt  was  struck  by  it ;  and  in  his  Cosmos, 
(vol.  2,  p.  41 2;  Bohn's  edit.)  he  says  (The  underlines  are  ours) : 
"  It  is  a  characteristic  of  the  poetry  of  the  Hebrews,  that  as  a 
reflex  of  monotheism,  it  always  embraces  the  universe  in  its 


INTRODUCTORY.  7 

unity,  comprising  both  terrestrial  life  and  the  luminous  realms 
of  space.  The  Hebrew  poet  does  not  depict  nature  as  a  self- 
dependent  object,  glorious  in  its  individual  beauty,  but  always 
as  in  relation  and  subjection  to  a  higher  spiritual  power.  Nature 
is  to  him«a  work  of  creation  and  order,  the  living  expression  of 
the  omnipresence  of  the  Divinity  in  the  visible  world.  Hence, 
from  the  very  nature  of  Hebrew  lyrical  poetry  it  is  grand  and 

solemn Devoted  to  the  pure  contemplation  of  the  Deity, 

it  remains  clear  and  simple  in  the  midst  of  the  most  figurative 
forms  of  expression,  delighting  in-  comparisons  which  recur 
with  almost  rythmical  regularity." 

Commenting,  page  413,  on  the  Psalm  104,  which  he  quotes 
at  length,  Humboldt  remarks:  "We  are  astonished  to  find 
in  a  lyrical  poem  of  such  a  limited  compass,  the  whole  uni- 
verse— the  heavens  and  the  earth — sketched  with  a  few  bold 
touches." 

"  Similar  views  of  the  cosmos  occur  repeatedly  in  the  Psalms, 
and  more  fully  perhaps  in  the  3^7th  (38th?)  Chap,  of  the  Book 
,  of  Job.  The  meteorological  processes  which  take  place  in  the 
atmosphere,  the  formation  and  solution  of  vapor,  the  play  of 
its  colors,  the  generation  of  hail,  and  the  voice  of  the.  rolling 
thunder  are  described  with  individualizing  accuracy ;  and  many 
questions  are  propounded  which  we,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
physical  knowledge,  may,  indeed,  be  able  to  express  under  more 
scientific  definitions,  but  scarcely  to  answer  satisfactorily." 

The  "  more  scientific  definitions  "  may  pass  for  what  they  are 
worth ;  a  slightly  greater  knowledge  often  obliges  our  "  scien- 
tists "  to  change  altogether  their  "  definitions ;"  but  the  fact 
deserves  to  be  recorded  here  :  Humboldt  himself  acknowledges 
that  the  questions  propounded  in  the  38tfi  Chapter  of  Job,  "  can 
scarcely  be  answered  satisfactorily,"  with  all  our  modern  knowl- 
edge. 

Yet,  as  we  have  before  observed,  the  more  science  advances, 
the  more  the  accuracy,  even  of  expression  of  these  scientific 


8  GENTILISM. 

hintings  of  Holy  Scripture,  sliows  that,  often  at  least,  the  words 
themselves  could  not  come  but  from  the  lips  of  God. 

The  same  must  be  asserted  of  what  the  Book  of  Job  says  of 
our  globe,  which  is  the  proper  subject  of  this  chapter,  and  of 
which  we  4must  now  begin  to  treat. 

Who  can  read  without  astonishment  and  admiration  the  7th 
verse  of  Chap,  xxvi:  "He"— God— "  stretcheth  the  north"— 
the  northern  constellations — "  over  the  empty  space,  and  hang- 
eth  the  earth  upon  nothing."  There  we  have  the  position  of 
our  globe  in  the  physical  heavens,  accurately  described  in  the 
oldest  book  that  remains  to  us  of  all  those  ever  written  by 
man,  unless,  as  some  pretend,  the  first  Yedas  are  more  ancient. 

Here,  as  usual,  according  to  Humboldt,  "  Hebrew  poetry 
embraces  the  universe  in  its  unity,  comprising  both  terrestrial 
life  and  the  luminous  realms  of  space"  To  understand  the 
phrase,  the  reader  must  remember  that  he  stands,  as  Job  stood, 
on  some  point  of  the  northern  hemisphere ;  and,  looking  at 
night  on  the  starry  firmament,  he  sees  "the  North" — the 
boreal  constellations — "  stretched  over  the  empty  space,"  and  • 
he  knows,  as  Job  vknew  already,  since  God  had  revealed  it  to 
him,  that  "  the  earth  is  hung  upon  nothing." 

Compare  with  this,  we  repeat,  what  all  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers have  ever  said  of  the  cosmos.  And  all  the  Greek  philoso- 
phers, without  exception,  nourished  long  after  the  author  of 
the  Book  of  *  Job.* 

Thus  the  oft-repeated   objection   disappears,   that   Science . 
alone  discovers  the  greatness  of  the  physical  world,  and  knows 

*  We  speak  of  philosophers  and  physicists,  not  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
poets,  who  have  preserve<lin  their  verse  some  precious  fragments  of  the 
primitive  revelation.  Our  readers  will  remember  here  the  line  of  Ovid 
(Lib.  1,  Metam.), 

' '  Ncc  circumfwo  pendebat  in  aere  tellus 

Ponderibus  librata  suis." 

n 

It  lo  >ks  almost  as  a  literal  translation  of  the  passage  of  Job  just  quoted. 


ESTTKODUCTOEY.  9 

how  to  enlarge  the  ideas  of  man.  The  Author  alone  of  that 
immensity  knows  perfectly  His  secrets,  and  He  had  conde- 
scended to  reveal  something  of  it  to  man  more  than  thirty 
centuries  ago — long  before  Science,  as  it  is  called,  was  born. 
Yet  puny  man  imagines  that,  because  he  sees  a  little  more 
than  his  immediate  ancestors,  he  has  no  thanks  to  give  to  the 
Creator  of  all* things.  Nay,  he  claims  to  be  himself  almost  the 
very  demiurgos,  since,  in  his  opinion,  a  discoverer  can  be  called 
an  inventor,  nay,  a  creator. 

The  strong  light  which  the  7th  verse  of  Chapter  xxvi.  throws 
so  suddenly  on  the  isolation  of  our  globe  in  space,  is  curiously 
singled  out  and  rendered  more  vivid  by  the  apparent  meta- 
phoric  obscurity  of  the  Chapter  xxxviii.,  as  a  bright  ray  becomes 
more  dazzling  in  the  black  emptiness  of  the  camera  obscura. 
"  Where  wast  though  when  I  laid  the  foundations  of  the  e*rth  ? 
Tell  me  if  thou  hast  understanding  ?  Who  hath  laid  the  meas- 
ures thereof,  if  thou  knowest  ?  or  who  hath  stretched  the  line 
upon  it  ?  Upon  what  are  its  bases  grounded  ?  Or  who  laid 
the  corner-stone  thereof  I"  Archbishop  Kenrick,  whose  trans- 
lation we  adopt,  remarks  on  the  words  we  have  underlined, 
that  "  the  position  of  the  earth  in  space,  unsupported,  is  clearly 
intimated."  The  whole  passage  is  metaphoric,  and  under 
material  images  depicts  the  mighty  operations  of  the  great 
creative  mind.  He  alone  knows  the  exact  measure  of  our 
globe  which  he  has  made,  and  he  has  stretched  over  its  sur- 
face the  curved  lines  which  give  it  its  form.  By  requiring  of 
Job  to  tell  "  upon  what  its  bases  are  grounded,"  He  wanted 
him  evidently  to  answer,  "  Upon  nothing."  And  the  expres- 
sion of  the  Septuagint  version  deserves  to  be  here  mentioned 
as  the  word  translated  in  the  Vulgate  by  "  bases  "  is  in  Greek 
"  Kpiitot"  namely,  rings  or  circles.  Nothing  is  more  remark- 
able than  this  expression,  since  it  is  precisely  the  spherical 
shape  of  the  earth,  the  whole  globular  circumference  press- 
ing upon  the  attracting  centre — wrhich  can  explain  how  it 


10  GENTTLISM. 

can  "hang  upon  nothing."  Physicists  will  easily  understand 
that  even  if  our  globe  was  the  only  one  created,  and  if  it 
was  not  'attracted  by  other  spheres,  but  acted  upon  only  by  its 
own  forces,  the  earth  would  for  ever  stand  immovable  in  space, 
yet  it  would  be  and  remain  spherical  through  gravitation,  and 
owing  to  the  force  of  cohesion  which  that  very  form  sup- 
poses and  creates.  Why  modern  interpreters  have  translated 
the  Hebrew  word  here  by  "  bases,"  when  the  Septuagint 
gave  it  the  meaning  of  "circles"  or  "rings,"  we  cannot  say. 
Bufr  the  Jewish  translators,  who  wrote  that  version  three  hun- 
dred years  before  Christ,  thought  themselves  right  in  their  in- 
terpretation. And  the  Church  has,  to  a  certain  degree,  con- 
secrated this  particular  version  of  the  Bible,  which  all  the  Greek 
Fathers  have  followed. 

^|e  hope  that  our  readers  have  drawn  from  what  precedes 
the  conclusion,  that  God  has  not  left  altogether  to  "  Science" 
the  task  of  instructing  us  on  the  immensity  of  creation,  on 
the  mysterious  nature  of  light,  on  the  place  and  form  of  our 
dwelling  —  the  small  globe  where  we  accomplish  our  mortal 
destinies.  From  what  precedes  we  can  also  conclude  that  the 
Creator  takes  a  particular  care  of  this  insignificant  "  spheroid," 
without,  however,  neglecting  the  rest  of  His  creation.  What- 
ever He  may  have  dqne  for  the  beings  who,  perhaps,  inhabit 
other  planets  has  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  our  eternal  wel- 
fare, and  consequently  of  this  His  revelation  has  not  spoken. 
But  how  rich  and  abundant  is  the  divine  communication  made 
to  us  of  all  the  details  which  may  interest  us  with  regard  to  the 
precise  little  spot  where  we  "  move  and  have  our  being !"  Let 
us  see  :  First,  we  can  say  but  a  word  of  that  atmosphere  where 
the  "  waters  which  are  above  the  firmament,"  as  Moses  describes 
it,  follow  constantly  the  marvellous  guidance  of  laws  until  now 
almost  perfectly  unknown.  We  will  merely  repeat  the  few 
words  of  Job  :  "  Hast  thou  entered  into  the  storehouses  of  the 
snow,  or  hast  thou  beheld  the  treasures  of  the  hail  £".... 


INTRODUCTORY.  11 

"  "Who  gave  a  course  to  violent  showers,  or  a  way  for  noisy 
thunder";  that  it  should  rain  on  the  earth,  without  man,  in  the 
wilderness,  where  no  mortal  dwelleth ;  that  it  should  fill  the 
desert  and  desolate  land,  and  should  bring  forth  green  grass  ? 
Who  is  the  father  of  rain  ?  Or  who  begat  the  drops  of  dew  J 
Out  of  whose  womb  came  the  ice  ?  And  the  frost  from  heaven 
who  hath  gendered  it  ?  The  waters  are  hardened  like  a  stone, 
and  the  surface  of  the  deep  is  congealed  "  (Job,  Oh.  xxxviii). 

This  is  the  passage,  with  others  of  similar  import,  which 
filled  with  admiration  Humboldt  himself ;  who  confessed  that 
many  of  these  questions  "  can  scarcely  be  answered  "  in  the 
actual  state  of  our  knowledge.  Let  us  hope  that  the  efforts 
now  made  on  this  Continent  of  Xorth  America  by  the  "  Signal 
Bureau,"  will  ultimately  render  less  problematical  the  various 
theories  invented  until  our  time  by  so  many  explorers  and 
meteorologists,  to  explain  the  innumerable  processes  of  atmos- 
pheric variations. 

But  two-thirds  of  our  globe  are  covered  with  "  the  waters 
that  are  under  heaven,"  and  which  were  from  the  beginning, 
"  gathered  together  into  one  place ;"  and  this  "  gathering  toge- 
ther of  the  waters  God  called  the  seas."  (Gen.,  Oh.  1.)  This 
grand  feature  of  our  dwelling  calls  for  a  particular  attention. 

Whatever  may  have  been  the  various  theories  by  which  cos- 
rnologists  have  tried  to  explain  the  formation  of  our  globe,  and 
the  first  functions  of  the  immense  atmosphere  which  from  the 
beginning  enveloped  it,  the  general  opinion  of  the  greatest  phi- 
Icfsophevs,  beginning  with  Thales,  has  been  conformable  to  the 
inspired  text  of  the  Christian  Scriptures.  The  earth,  after  its 
first  condensation,  is  supposed  by  nearly  all  the  great  thinkers 
to  have  been  surrounded  by  a  vast  envelope  of  aqueous  vapors, 
a  part  of  which  was  ultimately  condensed  to  form  our  ocean  and 
the  rivers  it  receives,  the  other  part  remaining  suspended  in 
the  air  and  undistinguishable  from  it.  This  primitive  process 
of  "  the  separation  of  the  waters  "  must  have  been  one  of  the 


12  GENTILISM. 

grandest  phenomena  accompanying  the  birth  of  our  globe.  The 
Book  of  Genesis  devotes  two  or  three  lines  to  it,  with  the  simpli- 
city of  an  ordinary  chronicle.  And  this  very  way  of  treating 
such  a  stupendous  subject  is  to  every  thinking  man  a  suffi- 
cient proof  that  God  himself  dictated  the  narrative.  What 
was,  for  His  power,  the  pouring  down  of  the  liquid  sea  from 
the  ocean  of  the  air  ?  Exactly  what  is  for  man  the  cooling  of  a 
few  drops  of  water  into  a  glass  receiver  from  the  heated  coils 
of  a  cubic  foot  alambic. .  A  simple  word  or  two  expresses  suf- 
ficiently the  wonderful  fact. 

But  to  please  all  minds,  the  splendor  of  inspired  poetry  was 
to  be  thrown  over  the  same  creative  act ;  and,  in  his  terrible 
affliction,  the  prophet  of  the  land  of  Hus  was  to  hear  from  the 
lips  of  God,  and  to  preserve  for  all  time  to  come  the  following 
words: 

(Chap,  xxxviii.,  v.  8,  and  foil.) :  "  Who  shut  up  the  sea  with 
doors,  when  it  brake  forth  as  issuing  out  of  the  womb  ?" — 
namely,  from  the  atmosphere — "  When  I  made  a  cloud  the  gar- 
ment thereof,  and  wrapped  it  in  a  mist  as  in  swaddling  bands  ? 
I  set  my  bounds  around  it,  and  made  it  bars  and  doors ;  and  I 
said :  Hitherto  thou  shalt  come,  and  thou  shalt  go  no  further ; 
and  here  thou  shalt  break  thy  swelling  waves." 

The  ocean  here  is  individualized.  It  is  a  new-born  infant.  It 
issues  forth  from  the  womb  of  the  all-surrounding  atmosphere. 
It  breaks  forth  having  a  cloud  for  its  garment,  and  a  mist  in- 
stead of  swaddling  bands.  Could  the  .physical  process  be 
better  expressed,  and  .a  more  gracious  image  represent  more 
truthfully  the  passage  of  invisible  vapor  to  liquid  through  the 
intervening  state  of  cloud  or  mist  ?  Often  human  poets  have 
expressed  physical  truths  under  graceful  imagery.  But  how 
often  have  they  not  failed  either  in  the  metaphorical  expression 
or  in  the  exact  statement  of  the  truth?  Here  both  were  ad- 
mirably rendered,  many  ages  before  Lavoisier,  by  the  invention 
of  his  gas-receiving  tub,  was  the-first  to  render  the  process  visible 


INTRODUCTORY.  13 

to  the  eve  of  man ;  for  it  is  here  the  same  phenomenon  on  a 
scale  commensurate  with  the  globe. 

After  all  this  magnificence  of  language,  a  yet  greater  height 
of  sublimity  is  reached  by  the  last  words,  which  soar  to  the 
utmost  height  possible  to  human  language :  "  I  set  My  bounds 
around  it,  and  made  it  bars  and  doors ;  and  I  said :  Hitherto 
thou  shalt  come,  and  thou  shalt  go  no  further,  and  here  thou 
shalt  break  thy  swelling  waves." 

And  it  is  books  containing  such  descriptions  as  these  that 
some  men  of  the  last  and  the  present  age  have  f  nought  they 
could  make  the  butt  of  their  ridicule,  and  speak  of  them  with 
contempt  as  beneath  the  dignity  of  "  Science." 

"We  could  indefinitely  enlarge  on  this  theme,  and  snow  how 
correctly  Holy  Scripture  speaks  not  only  of  the  great  features 
of  the  earth,  but  likewise  of  the  beings  which  fill  the  air,  the 
sea  and  the  land.  Humboldt  calls  it  an  "individualizing  ac- 
curacy." Compare  its  language  in  the  description  of  the  horse, 
the  crocodile,  etc.,  with  that  of  the  great  naturalists  of  past 
ages,  of  Pliny  the  Elder,  for  instance,  and  the  most  renowned 
philosophers  of  Greece,  not  excepting  Aristotle,  and  men  may 
see  on  what  side  is  true  Science.  We  cannot,  however,  dis- 
patch this  branch  of  our  subject  without  insisting  on  a  par- 
ticular reflexion  of  a  general  character.  The  whole  hubbub 
which  is  now  raised,  not  only  among  "  Scientists,"  but  among 
almost  all  classes  of  readers — since  "  Science  "  is  now  popular- 
ized— is  reduced  in  our  days,  to  a  great  extent  at  least,  to  the 
theory  of  "evolution"  as  explanatory  of  the  existence  of  all 
material  substances,  of  the  mind  itself  and  of  its  most  intricate 
operations.  We  know  what  consequences  are  drawn  from  the 
theory  by  some  "  leaders  of  thought "  in  our  age,  to  explain 
the  formation  of  every  species  of  beings,  from  an  original  "  pro- 
toplasm," by  the  action  of  laws  independent,  in  their  opinion, 
of  any  creative  act.  There  is  undoubtedly  some  truth  in  the 
theory  of  "  evolution."  But  as  the  belief  in  the  essential  dis- 


14  GENTILISM. 

tinction  of  species  has  not  yet  been  overthrown  by  all  the  argu- 
ments and  facts  adduced  by  the  supporters  of  the  system,  since 
many  learned  naturalists  not  only  are  not  convinced,  but  appear 
more  persuaded  than  ever  of  the  solidity  of  the  doctrine  op- 
posed to  the  modern  theories ;  it  is  possible  that  the  only  frag- 
ment of  truth,  after  all,  that  the  "new  science"  can  rely  upon, 
consists  in  the  fact  that  the  production  of  material  beings  has 
begun  by  the  simplest  forms,  and  proceeded  gradually  to  more 
complex  organizations ;  until  the  highest  and  noblest  work  of 
nature  appealed  in  our  humanity.  And  it  is  remarkable  that 
the  strongest  proof,  after  all,  that  this  is  true  as  to  the  succession 
of  material  beings  is  contained  in  the  first  chapter  of  the  first 
book  of  the  Bible.  For  so  it  is.  How  could  Moses  begin  his 
narrative  by  speaking  first  of  the  creation  of  mere  inorganic  ele- 
ments :  earth,  light,  ether,  called  by  him  firmament,  and  water 
either  in  the  form  of  vapor  suspended  in  the  atmosphere,  or 
visible  and  gathered  in  the  seas ;  next  of  vegetable  forms,  be 
fore  reptiles  and  birds  are  introduced ;  to  be  followed  by  aquatic 
mammalia  first,  and  later  on  by  tame  and  untamed' quadrupeds ; 
the  whole  of  it  to  be  crowned  finally  by  the*  creation  of  man  ? 
How  could  he  do  so,  unless  apprised  of  it  by  the  Author  Him- 
self ?  His  narratiw  reaches  directly  the  most  scientific  form 
that  any  book  on  natural  history  can  take.  Modern  naturalists, 
even  now  that  the  more  proper  and  natural  order  is  known, 
begin  generally  their  descriptions  by  the  "  bimana  " — man  ; — 
then  the  "  quadrumana  " — apes ;  afterwards  other  "  mammalia," 
before  they  speak  of  inferior  organizations;  tljey  thus  unac- 
countably reverse  the  natural  order.  Moses  was  the  first,  long 
before  "  Science  "  was  invented,  to  give  the  proper  classification 
of  material  beings,  commencing  by  the  most  simple  elements, 
and  ending  by  the  most  complex  being — man— whom  some 
Fathers  of  the  Church  called,  on  that  account,  a  "  microcosm." 
Let  it  be  understood  that  this  was  the  real  evolution  of  mun- 
laue  things,  and  science  will  be  reconciled  with  truth ;  and  the 


IXTKODUCTOEY.  15 

first  chapter  of  Genesis  will  be  placed  at  the  head  of  all  scien- 
tific treatises  on  natural  history,  as  it  surely  deserves  to  be  for 
its  accuracy  and  completeness. 

Xature  presented  under  this  light,  offers  itself  at  once  to  the 
most  determined  sceptic  as  the  work  of  a  designer ;  and  it  is 
precisely  what  many  modern  naturalists  try  their  best  to  avoid. 
When  reproached  with  the  tendency  of  their  theories  toward 
materialism  and  atheism,  they  exclaim  that  they  are  misjudged, 
and  their  intentions  misconstructed.  Yet  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
main  apparent  object  of  all  their  scientific  labor  to  take  away 
from  human  sight  the  view  of  design — which  many  of  them 
certainly  positively  deny — and  to  present  creation  as  the  result 
of  mechanical  laws  behind  which  mind  may  exist,  but  without 
being  seen  or  felt,  without  consequently  deserving  the  gratitude 
and  love  of  man. 

But  in  the  narrative  of  Holy  Scripture  God  is  heard  and  seen 
in  the  smallest  as  in  the  greatest  things  ;  and  we  have  to  acknowl- 
edge Him  as  the  true  Author,  both  of  the  design  and  of  its 
execution.  For  as  Humboldt  himself  acknowledges,  "  the  He- 
brew poet  does  not  depict  nature  as  a  self-dependent  object, 
glorious  in  its  individual  beauty ;  but  always  as  in  relation  and 
subjection  to  a  higher  spiritual  power.  Nature  is  to  him  the 
work  of  creation  and  order,  the  living  expression  of  the  omni- 
presence of  the  Deity  in  the  visible  world."  And  thus  it  is 
proper  it  should  be. 

Design  is  therefore  visible  in  all  the  features  of  the  earth, 
the  dwelling  of  man,  the  future  temple  of  a  universal  Church. 
But  we  must  examine  more  in  detail  the  configuration  of  its 
surface  as  conducive  to  the  great  object  in  view ;  namely,  the 
formation  of  a  place  adapted  to  all  the  evolutions  of  human 
society,  with  respect  either  to  distinct  nations,  or  to  the  possi- 
bility of  combining  them  all  in  one  great  catholic  whole. 
Holy  Scripture  everywhere  delights  in  speaking  of  the  seas 
and  of  the  high  mountains,  and  of  the  flowing  rivers,  as  well 


16  GENTILISM. 

as  of  arid  deserts  and  level  plains.  It  would  be  idle  to  imagine 
that  the  chief  object  of  the  inspired  writers  was  to  please  our 
imagination  by  a  striking  description  of  those  great  features  of 
our  globe.  As  from  the  very  beginning,  and  throughout  all 
those  glorious  pages,  we  see  mention  made  of  the  origin  and 
various  fortunes  of  all  the  diverse  nations,  to  which  invariably 
places  are  assigned  often  by  a  direct  intervention  of  Provi- 
dence, we  must  suppose  that  the  actual  configuration  of  the 
earth  was  the  result  of  a  great  design  on  the  part  of  God,  with 
respect  both  to  the  social  life  of  individual  nations  and  to  the 
spread  of  the  "  universal  kingdom  "  of  God  so  often  spoken  of 
in  Scripture.  We  would,  otherwise  altogether  misunderstand 
the  spirit  and  character  of  Holy  Writ. 


II. 


Mankind  was  to  come  from  a  single  pair ;  and  if  the  first 
man  had  persevered  in  the  state  of  holiness  in  which  ho 
was  created,  it  is  very  possible  that  the  surface  of  the  globe 
would  have  been  very  different  from  what  it  is.  Nothing  in 
that  case  would  have  prevented  mankind  from  remaining  united, 
and  most  probably  human  society  would  have  existed  as  a  Church 
rather  than  as  a  civil  government.  It  is,  moreover,  doubtful  if 
the  waters  of  the  universal  flood,  in  retiring  to  their  former 
bed,  restored  to  the  continents  and  seas  their  former  delimita- 
tions. But  these  are  mere  theoretical  questions  of  which  we 
cannot  speak ;  and  we  have  merely  to  suppose  that  the  actual 
earth,  as  it  exists  since  the  flood,  was  intended  for  the  dwelling 
of  actual  men,  such  as  we  know  them  to  be  since  the  fall. 

The  general  appearance  of  the  earth,  as  sketched  out  on  a  map, 
is  that  of  an  all-embracing  ocean,  over  whose  surface  rise  sev- 
eral large  continents,  chiefly  in  the  northern  hemisphere.  This 
first  aspect  shows  at  once  that  the  Designer  intended  all  men  to 


LNTKODUCTOKY.  17 

have  intercourse  of  some  kind  with  each  other ;  an  intercourse 
well-nigh  impossible  without  the  all-surrounding  seas,  as  it  shall 
presently  appear.  This  is  the  first  and  general  outlook  (a). 

But  a  more  close  consideration  of  the  continents  themselves, 
with  their  chains  of  high  mountains,  their  broad  and  long  rivers, 
and,  in  some  cases,  the  large,  sandy  deserts  or  rocky  and  barren 
plains,  with  which  their  surface  is  dotted,  intimates  that,  so- 
cially, man  was  not  to  form  a  universal  republic,  but  must  con- 
sent to  exist  in  larger  or  smaller  groups,  each  of  them  sur- 
rounded with  well-defined  limits,  determining  numerous  nation- 
alities. This  is  the  particular  aspect  not  inconsistent  with  the 
first  (&). 

This  state  of  human  society  shows  itself  directly  of  such  a 
nature,  that,  owing  to  numerous  obstacles  arising  from  the  an- 
tagonism of  character  in  nations,  a  universal  religion,  humanly 
speaking,  is  impossible ;  and,  if  such  an  institution  exists,  it 
must  come  directly  from  God.  In  the  supposition,  even,  that 
He  has  decreed  it,  it  must  remain  subject  to  the  play  of  the  free 
will  left  to  man.  Thus,  the  struggle  of  the  Church  to  realize 
itself,  and  to  continue,  after  having  once  started  into  existence, 
must  be  the  main  history  of  the  true  religion ;  and  it  may  re- 
quire long  ages  to  come  to  a  complete  and  final  state,  although 
all  along  the  character  of  universality  must  be  discernible.  The 
fact,  however,  that  there  can  be  but  one  religion  coming  from 
God  is  plain  enough,  and  need  not  be  discussed  in  these 
pages  (c). 

But,  before  we  enter  at  length  into  these  considerations,  we 
must  speak  first  of  the  adaptability  of  the  human  race  to  the 
whole  globe,  and  show  that  the  earth  is  really  his  dwelling,  and 
the  dwelling  of  him  alone,  considered  in  its  entirety.  A  fact 
most  striking  and  well-ascertained,  now  that  our  globe  is  known, 
is  that  man  not  only  adapts  himself  to  all  countries  and  all  'cli- 
mates to  which  he  migrates,  but  that  it  is  in  his  nature  to  spread, 
himself  over  all  continents,  and  to  take  possession  of  the  whole 


18  GEXTILISM. 

earth,  although  he  at  first  started  from  a  single  point.  This  ia 
not  the  case  in  any  single  class  of  other  living  beings,  even  of 
a  high  order.  The  learned  and  acute  observers,  who  have  writ- 
ten on  the  geographical  distribution  of  plants  and  animals,  have 
been  obliged  to  draw  on  their  maps  curved  lines,  across  the  va- 
rious meridians,  showing  the  invariable  limits  in  which  the  dif- 
ferent orders  and  families  of  organized  beings  are  confined. 
And  it  would  be  a  matter  of  great  astonishment  to  find  any  in- 
dividual of  those  orders  and  families  out  of  the  well-ascertained 
limits  of  each.  Yet  such  law  does  not  bind  man ;  the  whole 
globe  being  his  by  the  right  of  his  organization  and  aptitudes. 

It  is  time  that  man  himself,  in  his  character  of  lord  of  crea- 
tion, can  extend  the  sphere  of  existence  of  those  inferior  be- 
ings, by  transferring  them  wherever  he  chooses,  and  naturaliz- 
ing many  of  them  in  other  countries ;  provided  he  follows  some 
rules  of  artificial  acclimation.  But  man  alone  can  do  it; 
and  plants  and  animals  will  not  of  themselves  choose  a  new 
place  of  residence.  Thus,  even  this  apparent  exception  proves 
that  the  whole  earth  is  the  dwelling  of  man  and  of  him  alone. 
Many  details  contained  in  modern  books  of  natural  history 
would  render  these  considerations  most  striking  and  interesting. 
AVe  can  only  but  refer  to  them  in  general. 

(a)  Man,  endowed  with  such  a  general  adaptability  to  all 
parts  of  the  globe,  finds  it  made  precisely  to  suit  this  quality 
which  he  possesses,  since  the  very  distribution  of  water  over  the 
earth  shows  the  possibility  for  him  to  become  acquainted  and 
deal  socially  with  all  other  men.  Yes ;  the,  oceans  and  rivers, 
instead  of  being  primarily  dividing  lines,  intended  to  separate 
men  from  each  other,  had  precisely  for  their  first  object  to  be- 
come highways  and  common  channels  of  intercourse  between 
the  various  nations  of  mankind.  To  become  convinced  of  this 
truth,  which  is  now,  however,  admitted  by  nearly  all,  we  have 
only  to  reflect  on  the  great  cause  which  rendered,  for  so  many 
ages,  India  and  China  almost  totally  unknown  to  Europeans. 


INTRODUCTORY.  19 

The  passage  of  ships  around  the  Southern  Cape  of  Africa,  had 
not  jet  become  possible  for  western  navigators,  and  the  com- 
munication between  Europe  and  Eastern  Asia  was  yet  confined 
to  the  exertions  of  a  few  undismayed  travellers,  or  of  Arabian 
caravans  through  the  old  continent.  It  took  then  several  years 
to  go  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other.  Hence  only  a  few  books 
of  travel  conveyed  all  the  information  Europeans  had  received 
concerning  those  distant  regions,  an  information  often  impaired 
by  many  fables ;  and  the  only  things  they  could  see  coming  from 
the  great  East  were  products  of  the  land  or  manufactured  goods 
imported  at  a  great  labor  and  cost.  Those  countries  were  yet, 
in  the  opinion  of  Western  people,  the  dwelling  of  monsters  and 
the  theatre  of  fabulous  institutions.  It  looked  almost  as  if  the 
inhabitants  of  the  east  and  west  belonged  to  two  altogether 
distinct  species  of  beings,  and  dwelt  in  two  different  planets 
scarcely  connected  together.  But  as  soon  as  Yasco  de  Gama 
opened  the  gates  of  the  vast  Indian  Ocean,  a  new  and  wonder- 
ful world  was  unfolded  to  the  curiosity  and  energy  of  men  of  the 
Japhetic  race,  for  so  many  centuries  estranged  from  their  Mon- 
golian brethren.  The  way  existed  before,  but  was  closed.  Had 
not  the  ocean  been  there,  should  we  know  much  more  at  this 
time  of  Hmdostan  and  Japan  than  our  ancestors  four  centuries 
ago  ?  Again,  supposing  that  in  place  of  the  Atlantic,  a  barren 
desert,  a  far  larger  Sahara  than  that  of  Africa,  had  stretched  it- 
self between  the  old  world  and  the  new,  it  would  have  required 
a  persistence,  an  energy,  and  a  foreknowledge  far  superior  to 
that  which  has  immortalized  Columbus  to  bring  in  contact  the 
adventurous  Spaniards  and  the  simple-minded  natives  of  Cuba, 
which  then  would  have  been  in  the  midst  of  a  vast  continent. 
God,  therefore,  could  not  render  more  easy  the  spread  of  the 
human  race,  and  the  subsequent  intercourse  of  all  its  members 
together,  than  by  covering  our  earth  with  the  universal  element 
where  wood  can  float,  and  where  a  simple  sheet  of  canvas  can 
become  a  sure  means  of  propulsion  through  the  waves,  by  op- 


20  GEXTILISM. 

posing,  in  a  few  feet  of  the  atmosphere,  the  free  passage  of  a 
current  of  air.  We  do  not  speak  of  the  modern  means  of  loco- 
motion, since  they  never  would  have  been  found  out  by  man, 
if  the  previous  ones,  more  simple,  natural,  and  always  of  uni- 
versal use,  had  not  been  first  known  and  adopted  from  the  be- 
ginning of  navigation. 

King  David  knew  this  particularity  of  our  globe  when 
he  exclaimed  (Psalm  xxiii.  2)  :  "  God  hath  founded  the 
earth  upon  the  seas,  and  established  it  upon  the  floods," 
and  (Ps.  cxxxv.  6) :  "  God  has  spread  out  the  earth  upon  the 
waters." 

And  the  sublime  king-poet  knew  the  object  of  this  earthly 
arrangement  when  he  cried  out  (Ps.  ciii.  25) :  "  Look  at  the 
great  and  wide  sea,  wherein  are  creeping  things  without  num- 
ber, both  small  and  great  beasts.  There  go  the  ships ;  there  is 
that  leviathan  Thou  hast  made  to  play  therein." 

And  (Ps.  cvi.  23) :  "  They  that  go  down  to  the  sea  in  ships, 
doing  business  in  the  great  waters  :  these  have  seen  the  works 
of  the  Lord,  and  His  wonders  in  the  deep.  He  " — God — "  said 
the  word,  and  there  arose  a  storm  of  wind;  and  the  waves 
thereof  were  lifted  up  ....  And  they  cried  to  the  Lord  in 
their  affliction;  and  He  brought  them  out  of  their  distress. 
And  He  turned  the  storm  into  a  breeze ;  and  its  waves  were 
still.  And  they  rejoiced  because  they  were  still ;  and  He 
brought  them  to  the  haven  they  wished  for." 

Job,  long  before,  had  in  a  few  words,  as  usual,  pictured  viv- 
idly this  great  feature  of  the  earth  and  its  object,  when  He  said 
(Chap.  xxvi.  10) :  "  God  hath  set  bounds  about  the  waters,  till 
light  and  darkness  come  to  an  end  ....  By  His  power  the 
seas  were  suddenly  gathered  together,  and  His  wisdom  defeats 
the  proud."  The  prophet  described  thus  the  wide  expansion 
of  the  liquid  element,  spread  wherever  terrestrial  light  and 
darkness  extend,  and  this  geographical  fact,  so  favorable  to  the 
general  intercourse  of  mankind,  is  at  the  same  time  an  impas 


IXTEODUCTOBY.  21 

sable  barrier  against  the  ambition  of  a  proud  conqueror  aiming 
at  universal  dominion. 

But  Isaiah  went  further  and  announced  openly  the  subser 
vience  of  the  seas  to  the  conquests  of  religion,  and  the  future 
spread  of  the  Church  of  Christ  through  the  open  highways  of 
the  ocean,  unamenable  to  the  laws  of  a  despotic  police,  and  des- 
tined for  ever  to  be  left  free  to  the  zeal  of  the  messengers  of 
God  (Chap.  xlix.  11>  12,  etc.) :  "  I  will  make  all  iny  mountains  a 
way,  and  there  shall  be  paths  over  their  highest  ranges.  Be- 
hold peoples  shall  come  from  afar,  and  behold  these  from  the 
north  and  from  the  seas,  and  these  from  the  land  of  Sinim." 
And  (Chap.  Ix.  4,  5,  9) :  "  Lift  up  thy  eyes  round  about  and 
see :  all  these  are  gathered  together ;  they  are  come  to  thee : 
thy  sons  shall  come  from  afar,  and  thy  daughters  shall  rise  up 
at  thy  side.  Then  shalt  thou  see  and  abound,  and  thy  heart 
shall  wonder  and  be  enlarged  when  multitudes  from  beyond 
the  seas  shall  be  converted  to  thee,  the  strength  of  the  Gentiles 
shall  come  to  thee ;"  and  v.  8  :  "  Who  are  these  that  fly  as 
clouds,  and  as  doves  to  their  dove-cotes  ?  For  the  islands  wait 
for  me,  and  the  ships  of  the  sea  in  the  beginning ;  that  I 
may  bring  thy  sons  from  afar  ;  their  silver  and  their  gold  with 
them,  to  the  name  of  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  to  the  Holy  One 
of  Israel."  Could  stronger  and  clearer  language  express  the 
idea  under  consideration  ? 

And  as  the  last  words  of  a  seer  are  always  those  which  are 
more  particularly  retained  in  the  memory  of  his  hearers,  the 
last  verses  of  the  prophet  give  yet  more  brilliancy  to  the 
thought  in  the  following  words :  "  I  will  set  a  sign  among 
them,  and  I  will  send  of  them  that  shall  be  saved  to  the  Gen- 
tiles beyond  the  sea,  into  Africa  and  Lydia,  them  that  draw  the 
bow ;  into  Italy  and  Greece,  to  the  islands  afar  off,  to  them 
that  have  not  heard  of  Me  and  have  not  seen  My  glory.  And 
they  shall  declare  My  glory  to  the  Gentiles." 

(5.)  According  to  the  prophet,  whom  St.  Jerome  called  an 


22  GENTILISM. 

Evangelist,  the  mountains  even  were  destined  to  be  "  a  way  " 
for  the  general  intercourse  of  men  and  the  propagation  of  the 
gospel.  The  sea,  however,  was  a  plainer  and  more  universal 
one.  We  may  gay  that  naturally  mountains  are  rather  an 
obstacle  to  the  intercourse  of  mankind,  and,  in  fact,  they  were 
evidently  intended  for  a  very  different  object,  and  the  great 
feature  of  high  mountain-chains  so  remarkable  on  the  surface 
of  our  globe  was  designed  for  a  far  dissimilar  purpose,  which 
must  now  attract  our  attention. 

By  the  cosmologist  and  the  geologist  the  high  ridges  of  rocks 
— by  which  the  earth  is  intersected  so  as  to  furnish  to  geogra- 
phers remarkable  land-marks  to  guide  them  in  their  descrip- 
tions— are  attributed  to  various  causes  and  are  supposed  to  be 
destined  to  purely  physical  functions ;  to  the  Christian  philo- 
sopher they  afford  considerations  of  a  far  higher  order.  For 
him  the  earth  at  its  creation  was  intended  to  become  in  time 
the  dwelling  of  intelligent  and  moral  beings  ;  and  the  smallest 
features  even  of  its  exterior  organization  must  have  some  refer- 
ence to  this  destination.  Design  must  appear  in  all  the  details 
of  the  works  of  God ;  and  the  more  striking  ones  in  the  exte- 
rior arrangement  of  our  globe  must  have  a  corresponding  strik- 
ing purpose  with  respect  to  the  whole  of  mankind. 

Thus,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  viewed  as  a  cause  of  varia- 
tion of  climate  as  powerful,  at  least,  as  the  difference  in  de- 
grees of  latitude,  mountains  were  formed  designedly  to  render 
the  earth  more  pleasant  and  more  universally  habitable  to  man, 
and  that  by  gathering  around  their  high  peaks  the  vapors  of  the 
atmosphere,  they  were  to  keep  constantly  filled  the  various 
reservoirs  of  all  rivers  and  lakes.  But  another  grander  purpose, 
referable,  in  fact,  to  the  whole  history  of  mankind,  appears  to  us 
written,  as  it  were,  on  their  very  rocks,  and  the  most  important 
probably  in  the  designs  of  the  Creator.  They  were  to  form 
immense  parks,  with  well-defir  ed  limits,  to  inclose  within  them 
the  various  nationalities  into  which  mankind  was  destined  to  be 


INTRODUCTORY.  23 

for  ever  divided.  Apparently,  therefore,  a  cause  of  division  rather 
than  of  union  for  man,  one  civil  government,  one  despotism, 
could  not  be  possible ;  and  the  true  religion  alone,  coming  from 
God  and  possessing  a  divine  power,  would,  at  a  future  day,  be 
able  to  overcome  all  those  barriers ;  so  that  God  would  make, 
according  to  Isaiah,  "  all  His  mountains  a  way,  and  there  would 
be  paths  over  their  highest  ranges."  (Ch.  49).. 

We  are  not,  therefore,  surprised  that  the  prophets  of  the  old 
law  delighted  so  much  in  describing  the  mounts  of  God,  and  in 
referring  constantly  to  this,  the  greatest  feature  of  our  globe, 
after  the  ocean.  The  mountains  certainly  did  not  fulfil  that 
high  purpose  during  the  whole  ante-diluvian  period ;  but  see 
how  soon  after,  when  Xoah  became  a  second  father  of  the 
human  race,  and  left  his  sons  to  become  directly  the  pro- 
genitors of  the  various  nations,  tliis  purpose  is  directly  un- 
folded. 

We  cannot  show  in  detail  the  adaptation  of  all  mountain- 
chains  to  this  object.  They  were  not,  moreover,  intended  to 
fulfil  it  alone.  The  rivers,  the  seas,  and  the  sandy  deserts,  as 
well  as  the  mountains,  were  destined  to  be  the  dividing  lines  of 
nations  and  races.  It  is,  however,  to  our  purpose  to  give  some 
remarkable  instances  of  it,  in  order  to  show  that  we  are  not 
merely  following  the  delusions  of  our  fancy. 

In  his  general  description  of  Asia,  Heeren  uses  the  following 
words  :  "  To  enable  us  to  form  an  adequate  notion  of  the  natural 
features  of  the  different  parts  of  Asia,  and  the  intercourse  of 
its  inhabitants  which  is  dependent  on  the  former,  it  is  necessary 
before  all  to  become  acquainted  with  the  great  mountain-ranges 
which  stretch  across  this  portion  of  the  globe,  and  determine,  in 
a  great  measure,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  and  the  mode  of  life  of 
its  occupants.  Two  of  these  vast  chains  of  mountains  extend 
across  the  continent  from  west  to  east,  forming,  by  their  ramifi- 
cations to  the  north  and  south — by  "which  they  are  connected 
together — a  species  of  gigantic  network;  or,  as  it  were,  the 


24  GENTILISM. 

skeleton  on  which  the  surface  of  the  whole  country  is  disposed, 
and  to  which  it  is  attached." 

Then,  describing  them,  he  shows  how  the  races  of  men  which 
they  divide  differ  from  each  other.  The  first,  the  Altaic  range, 
in  a  great  measure  unknown  to  the  Greeks,  extends  through  the 
southern  part  of  Siberia,  from  the  north  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  in 
the  west,  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  near  the  Behring  Straits ;  the 
second,  known  to  the  ancients  under  the  name  of  Taurus, 
stretches  likewise  through  the  whole  continent  from  west  to 
east ;  beginning  in  Asia  Minor,  then  through  Armenia,  to  the 
north  of  which  it  becomes  the  Caucasus ;  turning  afterwards  round 
the  southern  coast  of  the  Caspian  Sea  it  runs  along  through  the 
countries  known  of  old  as  Media,  Hyrcania,  Parthia,  and  Sog- 
diana ;  where  it  branches  off  into  two  lower  chains,  one  going 
north-east  and  the  other  south-east,  embracing  between  both  the 
great  Sandy  Desert  of  Herodotus,  known  to  us  as  the  Desert  of 
Gobi,  until  it  reaches  finally  the  Pacific  Ocean  in  Mantchou 
Tartary. 

These  two  great  mountain-chains  divide  Asia  into  three  parts 
"  essentially  distinct,"  says  Heeren,  "  from  each  other  with  re- 
spect to  climate,  and  the  property  of  their  soils ;  and  presenting 
differences  no  less  striking  in  the  mode  of  life  and  manners  of 
their  inhabitants." 

These  last  are,  1st,  the  hunting  and  fishing  tribes  of  Siberia 
north  of  the  50th  degree  of  latitude,  and  of  the  Altai  mountains ; 
2d,  the  pastoral  and  nomad  nations  known  as  the  Mongol, 
Kalmuc,  and  Sangarian  tribes  of  Tartary,  north  of  the  4:0th 
degree;  and,  3d,  south  of  this  parallel,  the  numerous  agri- 
cultural races  inhabiting  a  country  blessed  with  the  choicest 
gifts  of  nature ;  so  that  as  our  author  says :  "  The  earliest 
records  of  the  human?  race  ascribe  to  this  region  the  first 
origin  of  tillage,  of  the  cultivation  of  the  vine,  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  cities  and  political  combinations." 

These  striking  remarks  show  conclusively  how  mountain- 


INTEODUCTOEY.  25 

Chains  liave  become,  under  Providence,  the  natural  limits  of 
many  races  of  different  aptitudes ;  and,  carried  into  minor 
details,  this  study  might  become  yet  more  striking  and  interest- 
ing. A  mere  child,  looking  over  the  map  of  Europe,  will  see 
how  Spain  is  divided  from  France  by  the  Pyrenees ;  Italy  from 
France  and  Germany  by  the  Alps ;  Turkey  in  Europe  from 
the  Austrian  provinces  by  the  Balkan ;  Austria  from  Russia 
by  the  Carpathian  mountains  ;  and  how  Russia  in  Europe  was, 
until  last  century,  separated  entirely  from  Asia  by  the  Ural 
chain.  A  good  map  of  Switzerland  would  show,  further,  that 
the  tribes,  originally  distinct,  which  formed  what  we  call  the 
Swiss  Cantons,  had,  each  of  them,  well-defined  limits  in  the 
highest  ranges  of  the  Alps. 

These  are  merely  particular  instances,  which  could  be 
generalized  and  extended  to  nearly  the  whole  globe.  It  is 
clear  that  the  various  products  of  the  whole  earth  —  the 
result  of  the  industry  of  each  and  all  the  races  of  mankind — 
destined  to  be  interchanged  by  commerce,  and  thus  to  form  a 
bond  of  union  among  men,  were  dependent  on  this  general 
configuration  of  the  globe.  No  diversity  of  products  could  be 
obtained  if  a  dead  level  obtaining  everywhere,  the  same  cli- 
mate, the  same  atmospheric  changes,  the  same  energy  of 
nature,  should  be  the  universal  feature  of  all  countries ;  and 
in  this  case  commerce  among  men  would  be  out  of  the  ques- 
'  tion,  as  no  interchange  could  benefit  any  one.  At  the  bottom 
of  these  considerations  a  subject  opens  which  could  furnish 
matter  to  long  dissertations.  We  can  only  point  at  it  in  a 
few  words.  The  multiform  divisions  of  the  earth  require, 
for  drawing  out  their  capabilities,  as  many  different  aptitudes 
in  those  intrusted  with  the  work;  and  the  general  result  is 
commercial  intercourse  on  a  large  scale,  and,  consequently, 
social  union  of  some  kind.  We  can  thus  easily  understand 
how  the  exterior  geographical  configuration  of  our  planet  com- 
bines, with  the  diversity  of  human  races,  to  form  a  connecting 


26  GENTILISM. 

link  for  the  whole,  and  tends  to  spread  everywhere  through 
commerce  a  spirit  of  universal  kindness  and  amity.  We  begin 
to  see,  therefore,  how  design  already  appears  tending  benevo- 
lently to  fraternity  and  peace.  But  in  the  primitive  plan  of 
Providence,  this  agency  was  to  be  pOAverfully  strengthened  by 
the  unity  of  mankind  coming  from  a  single  pair,  and  drawing 
the  same  blood  from  common  ancestors. 

We  have  not  here  to  prove  this  unity.  "  Science "  still 
allows  us  to  suppose  it,  since  the  greater  number  of  learned 
men  still  defend  it  energetically,  and,  we  believe,  victoriously. 
But  if  "  science "  was  universally  to  contradict  it,  we  would 
nevertheless  prefer  to  follow  the  lead  of  "  revelation/'  which 
has  never  yet  contradicted  itself  as  "  science "  has  often  done. 
For  the  Christian  there  can  be  here  no  question.  He  must 
admit  Eedemption  if  he  have  any  faith,  and  redemption  sup- 
poses the  fall,  and,  consequently,  a  first  single  pair.  There  is 
evidently  nothing  more  to  say. 

The  unity  of  mankind  is,  therefore,  for  us,  a  truth  adopted 
advisedly,  conscientiously,  and  firmly.  God  created  the  race 
one ;  therefore  He  wished  it  to  remain  one.  He  placed  in  the 
heart  of  all  a  feeling  of  sympathy  for  all  those  of  the  same 
race ;  and  the  line  of  Terentius,  applauded  so  ardently  many 
ages  later,  expresses  the  feeling  of  all  at  all  epochs,  but 
chiefly  in  primitive  times,  at  the  very  cradle  of  mankind,  not 
long  after  the  great  calamity  of  the  flood,  when  the  traditions 
of  all  families  went  back  so  easily  to  the  first,  that  of  Ifoah : 
Homo  sum  /  humani  nihil  a  rue  alienum  puto.  The  passions 
of  the  human  heart,  the  divergent  interests  of  many,  the  for- 
getfulness  of  common  human  ties  on  the  part  of  surrounding 
multitudes,  may  stifle  for  a  moment  the  voice  of  a  common 
blood  speaking  to  the  conscience  of  all,  and  uttering,  at  least 
unconsciously,  the  low  murmur  of  sympathy.  But  reflection 
and  the  calmness  of  reason  bring  back  infallibly,  in  times  of 
quiet  and  peace,  the  feeling  which  God  has  so  firmly  implanted 


INTRODUCTOKY.  27 

in  the  breast  of  all,  and  which  St.  Paul  expressed  so  felicitously 
when  he  said  to  the  Athenians  :  fecit  Dcus  ex  uxo  omne  genus 
hominirrn  inhdbitare  super  universam  faciem  terrcs.  The 
crimes  men  often  commit  against  this  inward  sentiment  of  a 
common  humanity,  are  no  more  an  argument  against  it  than  the 
occasional  hatred  of  two  brothers  in  the  bosom  of  a  single 
family. 

But  it  was  chiefly  in  that  early  period  of  "human  history, 
when  mankind  before  its  dispersion  lived,  spoke,  worked  in  a 
kind  of  large  community,  so  soon  after  the  catastrophe  which 
had  overwhelmed  the  whole  species,  and  left  but  a  small  band 
of  three  brothers,  with  their  parents  and  their  wives,  that  this 
sentiment  of  universal  brotherhood  sank  deeply  in  their 
bosom,  and  must  have  become  traditional  in  the  race,  even 
after  its  dispersion.  From  that  time  down,  through  long  ages 
of  ignorance,  division,  error,  and  crime,  the  small  still  voice 
of  human  conscience  continued  to  speak  audibly,  when  the 
storm  of  passion  subsided,  and  appropriated  the  beautiful  sen- 
timent of  the  Latin  poet  before  he  had  uttered  it,  as  well  as 
after. 

The  unity  of  which  we  speak  could  not  be  forgotten  in  those 
early  ages,  because  the  race  had  then  but  one  language :  erat 
autem  terra  Icibu  unius — one  tongue  as  well  as  one  origin  for 
man.  Had  this  language  been  invented  ?  Speech  is  a  necessary 
consequence  of  human  thought,  and  social  man  can  no  more 
be  understood  without  it  than  God  Himself  without  His 
Eternal  Word.*  To  speculate,  therefore,  on  the  supposed 

*  We  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  personality  of  the  Divine  Word  is 
so  necessarily  connected  with  the  idea  of  God  in  the  reason  of  man,  that 
the  belief  of  God  once  supposed  the  person  of  the  Divine  Word  is  thereby 
known",  since  this  great  truth  is  above  reason  and  required  a  positive 
revelation.  But  an  infinite  mind  cannot  really  be  understood  without  an 
infinite  word  or  speech,  and  reflection  will  show  directly  the  truth  of  the 
proposition.  The  only  thing  really  revealed  is  that  both  are  distinct  as 
to  personality  in  God. 


28  GENTILISM. 

invention  of  language  is  at  once  ridiculous  and  childish.  All 
we  know  about  it  is,  that  man  has  never  been  a  deaf  and  dumb 
animal.  Individual  deaf  and  dumb  persons  can  subsist  in 
human  society,  because  they  form  an  infinitely  small  minority, 
and  are  helped  by  their  more  favored  brethren,  with  whom 
they  have  always  had  means  of  communication,  even  be- 
fore the  Abbs'  de  L'Epee  invented  for  them  a  system  of 
signs.  But  a  human  commonwealth,  even  that  of  a  small 
tribe,  composed  altogether  of  deaf  and  dumb  persons,  is  com- 
pletely unintelligible. 

It  may  be  said,  however,  by  the  friends  of  evolutionism, 
that  man  invented  language  gradually,  as  his  mind  was 
evolved ;  first,  signs  and  indistict  voices,  like  animals  and  birds ; 
later  on,  a  kind  of  pantomime,  with,  possibly,  interjections  and 
ejaculations,  when  he  had  reached  the  intelligence  of  the  ape ; 
finally,  articulate  speech  when  his  reason  enjoyed  full  con- 
sciousness. For  this  they  assert.  But  in  their  system,  as  there 
is  no  higher  type  than  man,  from  which  reason  and,  conse- 
quently, language  can  be  evolved,  both  must  come,  either  from 
mere  matter,  which  is  truly  incomprehensible,  and  will  not  be 
asserted  by  them,  or  by  the  intrinsic  power  or  force  of  mind 
itself,  which  from  an  almost  indistinct  germ  is  developed  into 
a  mighty  and  powerful  individuality.  This  is  certainly  their 
only  resource,  and  we  doubt  if  they  could  express  it  in  stronger 
terms.  But  this  development  is  more  mysterious  than  creation 
by  a  superior  power.  It  is  undoubtedly  making  something  out 
of  nothing,  without  a  supreme  agency.  And  this  is  not  mys- 
terious only,  but  truly  impossible.  Ex  nihilo  nihil  Jit,  For 
the  intellect  of  man  is  evidently  of  so  superior  and  altogether 
different  a  nature  from  that  of  an  ape,  that  evolving  the  first 
from  the  second  is  producing  something  out  of  nothing.  The 
pretension,  which  they  now  put  forward,  of  a  sudden — so  to 
speak — development  of  the  brain,  would  reduce  the  evolu- 
tionists to  be  merely  a  materialistic  sect, "and  mere  materialism 


I1STEODUCTOEY.  29 

is  now  condemned  forever,  we  hope.  Language,  as  well  as 
reason,  can  no  more  come  into  existence  by  mere  evolution, 
than  a  complete  star  out  of  pure  vacuum.  Both  must  have 
originated  from  above,  and  received  their  illumination  and 
power  from  the  Eternal  Word,  Who  illumines  all  men  coming 
into  the  world,  and  by  Whom  all  things  were  made. 

"We  know,  moreover,  that  mankind  at  first  had  but  one 
language,  and  we  can  see  at  once  what  a  powerful  means  of 
union  there  must  have  been  in  that  great  privilege  of  each 
understanding  all  others  and  being  understood  by  them  all. 
Had  not  this  unappreciable  prerogative  been  justly  lost  by  the 
overbearing  pride  of  the  builders  of  Babel,  how  different 
would  have  been  subsequent  human  history !  Could  men 
have  ceased  to  form  one  great  universal  commonwealth,  if  they 
had  continued  to  speak  the  same  idiom  ?  How  many  things, 
at  least,  they  would  have  forever  kept  in  common,  of  which 
they  were  deprived  as  soon  as  estranged  from  each  other  by 
the  very  words  they  uttered.  To  understand  it,  let  any  one 
reflect  on  the  bond  of  union  which  remains  between,  for  in- 
stance, all  English-speaking  communities,  even  when  perfectly 
independent  of  the  mother  country.* 

(c)  The  reader  is,  we  trust,  now  prepared  to  understand  the 
real  catholicity  established  at  first  amongst  mankind,  and  which 

*  We  find  the  following  remarks  on  the  "  original  unity  between  the 
languages  of  Africa  and  Asia,"  in  the  "  Herodotus  "  of  Sir  George  Raw- 
linson  (NTew  York  edit.,  1870,  page  525),  and  we  merely  copy  them  as 
appropriate  to  our  present  subject : 

"  The  peopling  of  Europe  in  primeval  times  by  tribes  having  a  similar 
form  of  speech,  which  yielded  everywhere  to  the  Indo-European  races, 
....  is  apparent  from  the  position  of  the  Lapps,  Finns,  Esths,  and 
Basques,  whose  dialects  are  of  the  Turanian  type.  Africa,  where  the 
Hamitic  character  of  speech  prevails,  might  seem  to  he  an  exception, 
more  especially  since  Hamitism  is  represented  by  the  best  modern  ethno- 
grapher ....  as  a  form  of  Sc-mitism,  and  distinct  altogetbei  from  the 
Turanian  family,  But  the  early  Babylonian  language,  in  its  affinity  with 
the  Susianian,  the  second  column  of  the  cuneiform  trilingual  inscriptions, 


30  GENTILISM. 

took  a  directly  religious  aspect  by  tlie  dogmatic  truths  and  tlie 
exterior  rites  of  worship,  which  most  certainly  a  primitive 
revelation  alone  could  grant  liberally  and  equally  to  all  the 
children  of  Adam.  We  call  this  :  Patriarchal  Catholicity  ;  and 
the  uniformity  of  religious  traditions  among  men  in  primitive 
ages — a  well-established  fact — proves  it  beyond  question.  It  is 
known,  moreover,  that  it  took  centuries  for  religion  to  become 
totally  corrupt ;  and  there  was  for  a  long  time  such  a  mixture 
of  truth  and  falsehood  in  the  worship  of  various  nations,  that 
nothing  else  than  a  primitive  revelation  can  explain  many 
startling  facts  well  ascertained  by  the  labors  of  modern  savants. 
Even  as  late  as  the  age  of  total  darkness,  just  previous  to  the 
appearing  of  the  "  light  which  was  to  illumine  all  men,"  we 
are  surprised  to  find  ourselves  occasionally  blinded  by  the 
bright  flash  of  some  primitive  truths  in  the  writings  even  of 
shallow  poets  as  Ovid  and  Horace. 

The  nations  on  parting  from  each  other  carried  evidently 
to  their  new  homes  the  treasure  confided  to  man  at  the  first 
unveiling  of  God  himself  to  our  humanity,  and  we  shall  be  able 
to  trace  many  points  of  direction  this  "  treasure  "  took.  The 
dogmas  of  the  unity  of  the  Godhead,  preserved  at  least  in  the 
personality  of  One  Supreme  among  the  gods ;  of  the  exalted 

the  Armenian  cuneiform,  and  the  Mantchoo  Tatar  on  the  one  hand,  with 
the  Galla,  the  Gheez,  and  the  ancient  Egyptian  on  the  other,  may  be 
cited  as  a  proof  of  the  original  unity  between  the  languages  of  Africa  and 
Asia ;  a  unity  sufficiently  shadowed  out  in  Genesis  (x.  6-20),  and  con- 
firmed by  the  manifold  traditions  concerning  the  two  Ethiopia?,  the 
Cushites  above  Egypt,  and  the  Cushites  of  the  Per&ian  Gulf.  Ilamitism, 
then,  although  no  doubt  the  form  of  speech  out  of  which  Semiiism  was 
developed,  is  itself  rather  Turanian  than  Semite;  and  the  triple  division 
corresponding  to  the  sons  of  Noah  ....  may  stUl  be  retained,  the 
Turanian  being  classed  with  the  Hamitic."  .... 

The  meaning  of  the  whole  is  that  "primitively"  the  language  of 
Europe  had  "  a  form  similar  "  to  that  of  Asia  ami  Africa,  whose  "  oiiginal 
unity  is  apparent  to  the  best  modern  ethnographers  ;"  therefore  linguistic 
now  confirms  Genesis  :  terra  erat  labti  unius. 


INTEODUCTOEY.  31 

state  of  primeval  man  during  the  golden  age ;  of  his  fall,  the 
cause  of  all  misfortunes ;  of  the  immortality  of  his  soul  even 
after  the  fall;*  of  the  hope  left  at  the  bottom  of  Pandora's 
box;  of  the  necessity  of  expiations  for  sin,  of  sacrifices  con- 
sequently, chiefly  the  sacrifice  of  pure  and  innocent  victims ;  of 
a  possible  expiation  for  sinful  man  by  the  austerity  of  penance, 
except,  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  some  few  great,  inexpiable  crimes  ; 
of  the  communication  of  guilt  passing  from  father  to  son,  kept 
till  our  days  in  the  legislation  of  China,  but  in  antiquity  univer- 
sal among  all  nations ;  these  truths  stand  out  clear  and  precise 
in  the  infancy  of  all  ancient  races,  and  previous  to  idolatry,  by 
which  they  were  gradually  clouded,  though  kept  for  a  long 
time  under  the  veil  of  types  or  myths. 

Besides  these  dogmas,  the  great  facts,  likewise,  of  creation, 
under  the  shape  of  some  imaginary  cosmogony  ;  of  a  primitive 
paradisiacal  state  of  bliss,  of  subsequent  evil  creeping  in  and 
degrading  man ;  of  consequent  universal  corruption  ;  of  the 
flood  following  it,  and  of  a  renewed  humanity  starting  on  a 
new  career,  are  discovered  more  or  less  distinctly  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  all  Asiatic  peoples  without  exception,  and  from  Asia 
passed  over  to  Greece  and  Italy  in  Europe.  Whoever  reads  the 
first  pages  of  the  metamorphoses  of  Ovid  cannot  but  see  in  them 
a  translation  of  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  adapted  to  the  Ro- 
mans of  the  Augustan  age. 

*  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor,  it  is  true,  in  his  "  Early  History  of  Mankind,"  pre- 
tends that  "  the  general  prevalence  of  a  belief  in  the  continuance  of  the 
soul's  existence  after  death,  does  not  prove  that  all  mankind  have  inher- 
ited such  a  belief  from  a  common  source."  He  thinks  that  it  was  more 
probably  derived  from  dreams  and  visions  of  the  dead  of  which  he  gives 
in  his  introduction  a  list  which  he  might  have  indefinitely  enlarged  ;  but 
few,  we  suppose,  "will  'adopt  his  opinion ;  for  the  reason,  chiefly,  that  if 
man  did  not  previously  believe  in  the  "continuance  of  the  soul's  after- 
death,"  he  would  have  had  indeed  few  "  dreams  and  visions  of  the  dead," 
or  would  have  laughed  at  them,  should  they  ever  come  to  trouble  him. 
The  explanations  of  many  modern  thinkers  are  indeed  too  weak  intellect- 
ually to  account  for  the  universality  of  our  traditions. 
4 


32  GENTILISM. 

But  the  religious  rites  of  antiquity  are  of  a  yet  more  striking 
character  than  the  iew  dogmas  and  facts  preserved  in  the  primi- 
tive traditions  of  men.  All  nations  had  altars,  priests,  offer- 
ings and  sacrifices,  a  sacred  fire,  rites  requiring  lustral  water, 
libations  of  wine,  sprinkling  of  salt  and  of  flour,  prayers  recited 
in  a  standing  position  with  hands  raised  and  head  erect.  The 
rites  of  the  patriarchal  religion  as  related  in  Genesis,  and  devel- 
oped later  on  by  Moses  in  the  "  Leviticus,"  are  reproduced  al- 
most identically  in  the  poems  of  Homer ;  in  the  long-subsequent 
Greek  dramas  ;  in  the  prayers  and  rites  of  the  Etruscans  in 
Italy,  whence  the  original  religion  of  the  Romans  spnmg ;  in 
what  we  know  of  the  primitive  rites  of  the  Chaldeans,  the  As- 
syrians, the  Persians,  the  Hindoos.  The  monuments  which  have 
remained  standing,  after  so  many  ages  in  Egypt,  Italy,  Greece, 
Hindostan,  and  Persia,  reproduce  on  their  walls  the  scenes  en- 
acted, as  we  know,  in  Solomon's  temple,  and,  at  a  much  earlier 
period,  in  front  of  the  simple  altars  raised  in  Syria  and  Mesopo- 
tamia by  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob. 

All  these  and  many  things  else  argue  an  identity  of  belief 
and  religious  practice  in  primitive  times;  and  we  call  it  the 
universal  creed  of  old  Catholicity,  which  lasted  in  its  purity 
about  a  thousand  years,  except  probably  at  Babylon,  where  it 
seems  that  the  most  rank  idolatry  followed  close  upon  the  dis- 
persion of  mankind.* 

*  Max  Miiller,  in  his  first  lecture  "  On  the  Science  of  Religion,"  says : 
"  The  theory  that  there  was  a  primeval  preternatural  revelation  granted 
to  the  fathers  of  the  human  race,  and  that  the  grains  of  truth  which  catch 
our  eye  when  exploring  the  temples  of  the  heathen  idols,  are  the  scattered 

fragments  of  that  sacred  heirloom, would  find  but  few  supporters 

at  present;  no  more,  in  fact,  than  the  opinion  that  there  was  in  the  be- 
ginning one  perfect,  primeval  language,  broken  up  in  later  times  into  the 
numberless  languages  of  the  world."  If  the  celebrated  writer  meant  and 
thought  that  many  have  believed  that  there  was  "a  primeval  preternatu- 
ral revelation,"  perfect  in  all  its  parts,  and  clear  and  precise  as  the  credo 
of  the  Christian,  he  is  m'staken  in  the  supposition;  and  (ertainly  there 
can  be  but  few  supporters  of  it.  But  if  he  thinks  that  God  had  not 


IKTEODUCTWEY.  33 

It  was,  therefore,  apparently  from  that  great  centre  of  unity — 
the  former  tower  of  Babel — that  error  and  superstition  radiated 
gradually  toward  all  the  points  of  the  compass,  and  replaced 
the  pure  patriarchal  religion  by  all  the -aberrations  originating 
in  the  corrupt  inclinations  of  man  ;  so  that  Asia,  the  cradle  of 
primitive  truth,  became  at  last  the  hot-bed  of  the  most  abomi- 
nable superstitions. 

But  the  conclusion  is  irresistible,  not,  indeed,  from  the  meagre 
details  our  space  has  allowed  us  to  give,  but  from  the  many 
undeniable  facts  which  have  come  down  to  us  from  the  highest 
antiquity,  that  God  certainly  revealed  to  man  at  the  beginning 
a  number  of  truths  which  may  be  said  to  have  formed  in  their 
complexity  a  system  of  belief,  and  a  code  of  morality  all-suffi- 
cient for  the  guidance  of  mankind ;  and  the  germs  of  this  primi- 
tive revelation  have  been  found  scattered,  yet  preserved  in  the 
traditions  of  all  ancient  nations.  Should  this  not  be  admitted, 
the  universality  of  those  traditions  is  truly  inexplicable.  Con- 
trary to  the  supposition  of  those  who  believe  that  man  ap- 
peared at  first  everywhere  in  the  savage  state — nay,  derived  all 
his  faculties  from  the  brute — the  higher  we  reach  in  the  history 
of  man,  the  nearer  we  come  to  his  cradle,  and  the  purer  and 
holier  we  find  his  religion  to  be.  The  oldest  fragments  pre- 
served to  us  of  human  wisdom,  are  likewise  the  most  rational 

spoken  to  the  patriarchs  as  He  spoke  later  to  Moses,  and  that  few  now 
believe  in  such  divine  communication,  he  is  again  mistaken  on  a  subject 
with  which  he  is,  however,  perfectly  familiar.  He  seems,  everywhere 
in  his  writings,  to  imagine  that  the  "  primeval  revelation  "  was  only  an 
interior  one  to  each  individual,  who  found  in  his  heart  the  great  truths 
of  the  unity  of  God,  the  creation  of  the  universe,  the  necessity  of  expia- 
tion for  sins,  etc.  But  how  can  he  explain  in  this  case  the  primitive 
uniformity  of  belief  which  he  himself  admits,  and  of  which  he  often 
speaks  so  well  and  so  eloquently  ?  In  this  age  of  wrangling  we  ought  to 
know  at  last,  and  Mr.  Max  Miiller  ought  to  be  one  of  the  first  to  perceive, 
that,  with  the  "inner,  individual  word  of  God  to  man  alone,"  there  is  no 
possibility  of  uniformity  in  the  human  assent  to  truth  ;  although  each  one 
certainly  can  reach  it,  when  it  is  question  of  the  domain  of  pure  reason. 


34  GE1STTILISM. 

and  consistent  with  what  we  know  to  be  the  truth ;  and  without 
going  to  the  length  of  Cudworth  in  his  "  Sy 'sterna  Intelleo- 
'tuale"  without  attempting  to  prove  that  all  the  philosophies 
and  religions  of  antiquity  asserted  the  dogmas  of  what  we  call 
"  natural  religion,"  it  is  certain  at  least  that  by  supposing  mono- 
theism and  its  cognate  truths  to  have  been  at  first  admitted  by 
all,  the  gradual  creeping  in  of  error  and  the  slow  progress  of 
corruption  in  belief  and  morals,  is  much  more  naturally  ex- 
plained than  in  any  other  supposition ;  and  we  shall  see  the 
whole  process  unfold  itself  in  these  pages. 

Yes !  all  nations  believed  at  first  that  there  is  a  God  superior 
to  all  Powers— the  Almighty  Father  of  gods  and  men,  the 
rewarder  of  right  and  the  avenger  of  wrong ;  that  bliss  and 
woe  after  this  life  are  to  be  eternal ;  that  there  was  first  a 
golden  age  when  God  communed  with  us ;  that  man  lost  this 
privilege  by  disobedience,  and  that  hope  alone  remained  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  calamities  originating  in  sin  ;  that  expiation  is 
necessary  and  blood  required  for  it ;  that  sacrifice,  and  chiefly 
the  sacrifice  of  the  innocent,  propitiates  heaven  ;  that  God's 
law  is  written  in  the  conscience  of  man,  and  notliing  that  this 
conscience  reproves  can  possibly  be  right ;  finally,  that  a 
heavenly  teacher  is  required  for  our  safe  guidance,  and  that 
the  great  hope  left  us  in  Pandora's  box  is,  after  all,  the  com- 
ing of  such  a  teacher. 

But  if  all  these  truths  were  the  universal  treasure  possessed 
at  the  very  beginning  by  men  of  all  nations,  history  has  not 
begun  universally  by  barbarism,  and  we  have,  on  the  contrary, 
the  strongest  proof  of  an  original  culture  among  mankind. 
The  sublime  being  created  to  the  image  of  God  had  not  passed 
through  an  interminable  period  of  education,  during  which 
modern  theories  pretend  that  he  painfully  and  laboriously 
developed  himself,  and  actually  changed  many  times  his  own 
species,  before  he  could  acquire  the  erect  position  and  the 
faculty  of  speech  and  of  abstract  reasoning.  The  proofs  of  a 


35 

primitive  civilization,  and  of  universally -received  dogmas, 
which  could  not  come  but  from  heaven,  are  too  clear  in  the 
oldest  annals  of  mankind  to  allow  the  new-fangled  notions  of 
"  evolutionists  "  to  prevail  among  sensible  men,  at  least  with 
respect  to  the  human  kind.  When  the  chronology  of  the 
"  stone  period,"  of  the  "  troglodytes,"  of  the  "  lacustrine  sub- 
terranean villages,"  is  as  well  established  as  that  of  the 
Bible — although  no  one  thinks  of  raising  any  chronology  to 
the  dignity  of  dogma — it  will  be  time  to  discuss  the  matter 
coolly,  and  to  see  what  reason  can  accept  and  what  it  cannot. 
Should  the  defenders  of  the  old  doctrines  by  which  human 
society  is  upheld,  use  for  their  arguments  such  loose  conjectures 
and.  baseless  suppositions  as  many  pretended  "  scientists  "  bring 
forth  to  support  their  destructive  systems,  all  the  floods  of 
ridicule  that  engraving,  printing,  and  oratory  can  let  loose  at 
once  to  overwhelm  antagonists,  would  certainly  be  lavishly 
spread  out  against  the  luckless  assertors  of  conservatism.  But 
because  it  is  question  only  of  upsetting  the  foundation-stones 
of  the  social  fabric,  in  order  to  erect  a  new  and  problematical 
one  in  its  place,  whatever  the  new  builders  may  assert,  ought 
to  be  considered  as  sacred  and  directly  admitted  as  proved  be- 
yond question  ;  myriads  of  ages  are  clearly  required  since  the 
appearance  of  man,  because,  forsooth,  fossil  bones  and  rude 
implements  are  found  together  in  strange  juxtaposition ;  and  all 
the  wild  conjectures  of  a  disordered  fancy  must  be  pronounced 
to  be  the  only  means  of  solving  a  problem  which  a  hundred 
other  suppositions  can  as  well  explain.  But  of  this  we  shall 
speak  exprofesso  in  the  next  chapter. 

Ko !  although  the  prerogative  of  close  thought  and  reason- 
ing seems  to  have  been  abdicated  by  most  men  of  our  genera- 
tion, we  are  not  yet  brought  down  to  the  level  of  quasi-idioey, 
and  the  men  of  our  days  are  not  simple  enough  to  reject  plain 
and  glaring  truths  for  the  sake  of  adopting  at  most  ingenious 
fancies. 


36  GENTILISM/ 

And,  curiously  enough,  a  new  procf  of  what  we  call  the 
catholicity  of  patriarchal  religion  in  primitive  times  is  found 
in  a  universal  fact  of  that  period,  which  has  been  thoughtlessly 
considered  as  an  argument  for  primeval  barbarism,  and  which 
is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  strongest  supports  of  our  opinion. 

All  thoughtful  investigators  of  general  ancient  history  are 
struck  by  the  aspect  of  human  society  at  its  beginning.  Every- 
where, at  the  time,  men  are  found  in  small  groups,  in  what  is 
called  the  "  tribal  state."  Evidently  mankind  began  by  clan- 
skip.  Central  and  Southern  Asia,  the  cradle  of  the  human 
race,  offer  everywhere  that  strange  spectacle.  The  English 
savants,  who  have  studied  Hindostan  most  carefully,  are  com- 
pelled to  admit  that  the  tribe  system  prevailed  at  first  through 
the  whole  peninsula,  and  the  land-tenure  of  the  present  time, 
which  the  government  dared  not  .suddenly  abolish,  bears,  it 
seems,  a  striking  analogy  to  the  primitive  land-tenure  of  the 
Celtic  nations  ;  yet  how  many  foreign  invasions,  in  the  course 
of  ages,  have  subverted  apparently  the  original  institutions  of 
the  country !  Ancient  Persia,  Media,  Sogdiana,  and  all  the 
other  States  of  Central  Asia,  bear  out  the  same  supposition.  It 
is  now  admitted  that  the  same  took  place,  to  a  certain  extent, 
in  Egypt,  where  the  antagonism  of  city  against  city  in  later 
times  was  the  lasting  consequence  of  the  first  state  of  society. 
Every  one  knows  that  Arabia,  Syria,  and  Palestine  have  offered 
at  all  times,  down  to  our  very  days,  the  same  spectacle.  Europe : 
heroic  Greece,  primitive  Italy,  the  Spain  of  antiquity,  and  all 
the  Celtic  nations,  are  another  proof  of  the  universality  of  the 
fact.  Hence  many  writers  have  concluded  that  everywhere,  at 
first,  barbarism  prevailed,  and  that  man  began  really  in  the 
savage  state.  But  clanship  is  not  barbarism ;  and  admitting 
the  unity  of  the  human  species,  it  must  have  begun  by  clan 
ship,  since  it  all  came  from  a  primitive  family. 

In  the  supposition  of  "  evolutionism,"  men  would  have 
sprung  everywhere,  after  millions  of  ages  of  successive  "  nat- 


INTRODUCTORY.  37 

ural  selection  ;"  and  the  absurd  theory  of  "  autochthones,"  im- 
agined, first,  by  the  overflowing  fancy  of  the  Greeks,  would 
have 'to  be  resorted  to,  in  order  to  explain  the  appearance  of 
man  on  the  globe.  He  would  have  certainly  begun  everywhere 
in  the  savage,  or  rather  the  brute  state,  but  he  would  never 
have  come  out  of  it ;  since  the  transit  of  the  Rubicon,  as  it  is 
ingeniously  called,  namely,  the  passage  from  brute  instinct  to 
real  abstract  intellect,  is  yet  unexplained,  in  spite  of  Mr. 
Wallace  and  of  the  pleasant  author  of  a  late  article  in  the 
"  North  American  Review "  for  October,  1873.  That  "  nat- 
ural selection  "  may  be  busy  at  first  in  changing  the  physical 
appearance  of  man,  and  afterwards  turns  its  activity  towards 
increasing  the  volume  of  his  brain,  as  soon  as  "  man  is  endowed 
with  sufficient  intelligence  to  chip  a  stone  tool,  ....  or  when 
intelligence  has  progressed  so  far  as  to  sharpen  spears,  to  use 
rude  bows,  ....  to  cover  the  body  with  leaves  or  skins,  and  to 
strike  fire  by  rubbing  sticks,"  may  be  allowed  to  pass  for  the 
sake  of  argument.  Yet  the  difficulty  will  always  be  for  the 
brute  to  acquire  such  a  degree  of  intelligence  as  to  perform  all 
the  operations  above  enumerated,  by  its  own  effort,  and  with- 
out the  assistance  of  a  superiorly  civilized  master.  We  have 
seen  Jocko,  a  monkey,  serve  a  lady  and  gentleman  at  table,  and 
do  everything  that  a  well-trained  waiter  could  accomplish  ;  but 
we  do  not  advise  Mr.  Wallace  or  the  writer  in  the  "North 
American  Review,"  if  they  ever  travel  to  South  America,  to 
leave  their  cosy  hotel  in  Rio  Janeiro,  and  go  in  the  afternoon 
in  the  neighboring  forests  with  the  expectation  that  they  would 
find  their  dinner  ready  and  nicely  served  out  by  the  swarms  of 
monkeys  who  chatter  in  the  immense  trees  of  the  country. 

If  this  is  the  way  to  explain  the  "  passage  of  the  Rubicon " 
in  the  "  progress  from  brute  to  man,"  and  if  readers  of  our 
times  are  satisfied  with  such  an  explanation,  we  assert  that  the 
average  intellect  of  our  age  has  strangely  deteriorated,  and 
that  our  reason  is  too  easily  satisfied,  indeed,  and  admits  too 


38  GENTILISM. 

readily  what  would  have  but  raised  a  smile  on  the  grave  face 
of  a  monk  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Yet  this  "  passage  of 
the  Rubicon  "  is  given  as  a  wonderful  discovery,  and  "  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  contributions  ever  yet  made  to  the  Doctrine 
of  Evolution  ! " — we  copy  the  capitals  as  we  find  them  in  the 
"Review."  Henceforth  surely  the -expression,  "  Doctrine  of 
Evolution,"  must  be  treated  with  as  much  respect  as  that  of 
"  Christianity." 

But  even  granting  everything  to  the  partisans  of  the  new 
theory,  it  is  clear  that  neither  their  system  nor  that  of  the 
Greek  "  autochthones  "  could  have  produced  the  universal  state 
of  society  mentioned  above.  As  there  would  be,  in  either 
supposition,  no  unity  in  the  human  race ;  and  as,  moreover, 
the  system  of  evolution  supposes  no  real  distinction  or  even 
existence  of  species,  although  they  try  likewise  to  explain  the 
origin  of  such,  all  the  supposed  human  beings  evolved  from 
brutes  would  have  presented  unimaginable  differences  which 
have  not  been  sufficiently  opposed  to  these  theorists,  as  pro- 
ducing necessarily  a  real  jumble  without  order  and  possibility 
of  comparison.  To  employ  a  simile  which  has  often  been 
used  against  other  and  previous  sects  of  "  philosophers,"  there 
is  no  more  probability  of  the  "  evolution "  of  a  well-defined 
and  organized  species,  than  of  the  poem  of  the  Iliad  coming 
out  ready-made  from  the  mixing  up  together  of  an  infinite 
number  of  the  characters  of  the  alphabet  thrown  at  random. 
For  the  explanation  they  give,  that  through  natural  selection, 
only  one  results  from  many,  is  not  sufficient ;  since  on  account 
of  the  process  going  on  in  so  many  places  at  once,  under  so 
many  altogether  divergent  conditions,  and  with  no  guiding 
control  but  chance,  in  fact,  under  the  name  of  "  selection,"  the 
ultimate  effect  cannot  be  but  a  "jumble"  of  dissimilar  mon- 
sters, out  of  which  man  could  never  issue. 

In  the  supposition,  on  the  contrary,  of  all  mankind  coming 
from  a  single  pair,  created  at  first  and  instructed  by  their 


INTEODUCTOKY.  39 

[Maker,  the  government  that  would  naturally  prevail,  at  first, 
among  men,  would  be  that  of  the  tribe,  and  all  would  'neces- 
sarily adopt  it.  Mankind  would,  therefore,  on  that  hypothesis, 
consist,  at  first,  of  an  immense  number  of  small  groups  of 
people,  each  group  governed  by  a  patriarch  ;  all  the  details  of 
clanship,  as  they  obtained  formerly  among  the  Jews  and  the 
Celts,  and  as  they  were  preserved  by  the  Irish  until  the  seven- 
teenth century,  a  period  which  we  can  call  contemporary, 
would  become  the  universal  features  of  human  society ;  and 
the  first  epoch  of  human  history  would  be  the  reproduction 
everywhere  of  what  we  read  in  Genesis  of  the  posterity  of 
Heber,  or  of  Abraham,  his  grandson.  This  is  precisely  what 
the  discoveries  of  modern  historians  of  antiquity  tell  us  of  the 
state  of  mankind  in  Asia,  Europe,  and  Africa,  four  or  five 
thousand  years  ago,  a  state  which  continued,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
a  very  modern  period. 

But  was  then  clanship  a  condition  of  barbarism  or  of  civili- 
zation ?  To  answer  the  question,  we  have  only  to  make  a 
general  remark :  When  large  empires  arose  shortly  after,  we 
are  dazzled  by  their  brilliancy ;  and  the  monuments  which  still 
exist  of  the  original  civilization  of  Egypt,  India,  Persia,  Arabia, 
and  even  Ethiopia,  excite  our  wonder,  chiefly  when  we  com- 
pare ourselves  to  these  nations  with  all  our  boasted  progress. 
But  these  splendid  empires  themselves  could  only  have  been 
formed  by  the  agglomeration  of  previously  existing  tribes,  and 
the  high  degree  of  culture  which  they  immediately  displayed 
must  have  existed  in  great  part,  at  least,  in  the  tribal  fragments 
of  which  they  were  composed.  In  fact,  the  change  did  not 
destroy  the  tribes,  which  invariably  continued  to  exist.  We 
propose  to  prove  it. 

We  are  not  here  reduced  to  conjecture.  We  have  the  posi- 
tive proof  of  the  book  of  Job,  and  of  the  Hindoo  Yedas,  for 
our  firm  belief  that  the  first  patriarchal  civilization  was  of  a 
high  order ;  and  that  the  Arabians,  who  existed  before  Job 


40  GENTILISM. 

and  Moses,  and  the  East  Indians  who  lived  before  the  authors 
of  their  sacred  poems,  were  men  of  a  high  culture  intellect- 
ually, and  of  a  brilliant  and  luxuriant  life  materially. 

But  what  we  must  chiefly  insist  upon  is  the  fact,  that  all 
the  tribes  of  which  we  speak,  and  into  which  mankind  was 
then  split  up,  preserved  the  traditions  handed  down  by  their 
first  progenitors,  which  became  the  common  property  of  all 
ancient  races.  And  there  is  no  fear  that  any  people  preserving 
intact  |and  un  corrupted  those  traditions,  would  become  barba- 
rous and  uncivilized.  Job,  Abraham,  and  Jacob  were  patriarchs. 
They  lived  when  original  clanship  obtained  yet  universally. 
What  elevation  of  intellect,  greatness  of  soul,  firmness  of 
character,  "  and  amplitude  of  mind  to  greatest  deeds,'  as  Milton 
says,  do  we  not  admire  in  the  little  we  know  of  their  lives ! 
The  civilization  then  prevailing  spread  broadcast  the  seed  from 
which  arose  the  brilliant  empires  which  followed.  Not  only 
nobleness  of  soul  and  character  was  everywhere  impressed ; 
but  art,  primitive  art  in  the  Orient,  has  preserved  to  our  very 
times  the  human  figure  as  it  then  was  ;  not  the  cast  of  an  ape 
and  gorilla,  but  the  majestic  features  of  primeval 'man,  nearly 
as  he  came  from  the  hands  of  God.  If  it  has  not  the  softness 
of  a  Grecian  statue,  it  possesses  the  august  and  sovereign  gran- 
deur of  the  King  of  creation.  Phidias  had,  no  doubt,  in  his 
mind  what  he  may  have  seen  of  Egyptian,  Persian,  and  Syrian 
art,  when  he  modelled  the  head  of  his  Olympian  Jove,  besides 
a  few  lines  of  the  Iliad,  of  which  alone  all  authors  speak. 
And  it  is  enough  to  look  at  the  few  remains  preserved  in 
European  cabinets  of  antiquities,  nay,  at  some  ancient  marbles 
dug  out  of  Cyprus  and  brought  lately  to  New  York,  to  cause 
one  to  smile  at  the  idea  of  man  originating  in  the  ape,  and  at 
the  conceit  that  "  our  human  form  divine "  in  these  days  of 
progress,  is  of  a  higher  type  than  that  of  those  intellectual 
giants  who  trod  this  earth  three  thousand  years  ago.  "We 
could  enlarge  indefinitely  on  this  part  of  our  subject,  but  we 


INTRODUCTORY.  41 

must  prescribe  ourselves  narrow  limits    on    this   preliminary 
matter. 

The  reader,  we  hope,  at  the  end  of  this  volume,  will  share 
our  conviction  that  there  was  at  first  existing  on  this  globe  a 
real  patriarchal  catholicity,  of  a  truly  civilized  character,  and 
coining  directly  from  God.  We  must  now  consider  how,  not 
having  received  any  heavenly  promise  of  perpetuity,  it  finally 
failed  and  disappeared.  The  first  signs  of  a  future  dissolu- 
tion showed  themselves  as  early  as  the  building  of  the  Tower 
of  Babel,  when  all  the  fatal  seeds  of  disunion  were  'thickly 
scattered  in  human  society.  We  must,  therefore,  say  a  word 
of  it. 


III. 


The  narrative  contained  in  Chap.  xi.  of  Genesis  is  the  most 
rational  explanation  of  the  change  which  certainly  took  place 
at  that  time  among  men,  although  it  supposes  a  positive  in- 
tervention of  Divine  power.  We  pity  from  our  heart  those 
partisans  of  an  irrational  rationalism  who  directly  reject  an 
historical  fact  as  soon  as  it  is  cleary  miraculous,  and  then  are 
reduced  to  wild  conjectures  to  explain  the  sequel  of  history. 
What  amount  of  intellectual  labor  has  been  expended  on  the 
childish  effort  to  "  elucidate  "  the  life  of  Christ  and  the  estab- 
lishment of  His  religion,  while  doing  away  with  the  manifest 
prodigies  related  in  the  gospel !  It  is  in  the  name  of  "  Science  " 
that  many  assertions  of  Scripture  have  been  either  denied 
openly  or  pleasantly  turned  into  myths  by  writers  of  this  and 
of  the  previous  centuries.  And  this  fact  of  the  miraculous 
dispersion  of  mankind,  on  account  of  a  suddenly-imposed 
diversity  of  speech,  has  been  one  of  the  most  violently  at- 
tacked by  many  modern  authors.  The  "  Tower  of  Babel,"  of 
course,  in  their  opinion,  was  a  most  ridiculous  myth.  Man- 
kind, yet  united,  had  never  entertained  such  a  project.  No 


42  GENTILISM. 

edifice  of  the  kind  had  ever  been  raised.  It  was,  in  fact,  the 
first  of  "Arabian  tales."  And  they  certainly,  thought  them- 
selves perfectly  safe  in  these  assertions,  as  they  could  not  for  a 
moment  imagine  that  the  very  first  monument  built  by  man 
could  have  left  any  of  its  ruins  in  existence  to  our  very  days 
to  testify  against  their  unbelief,  or,  at  least,  that  any  chain  of 
historical  evidence  could  be  found  to  connect  with  it  existing 
debris.  Yet  in  this  even  their  hopes  have  been  deceived, 
and  the  curious  inquirer  can  see  with  astonishment  the  proofs 
of  it  detailed  by  Heeren  in  his  work  on  the  "^Babylonians." 
The  concordance  of  ancient  authors  with  the  discoveries  of 
modern  travellers,  chiefly  of  Eich  and  Ker  Porter,  is  certainly 
most  convincing.  •  And  should  the  consequence  be  denied, 
namely,  that  the  ruins  of  Birs-Nimrod  on  the  Euphrates  are 
the  true  remains  of  the  celebrated  Tower  of  Babel,  we  do  not 
see  how  any  fact  of  ancient  history  can  be  believed  as  true, 
since  no  other,  undoubtedly,  is  more  clearly  proved.  E.  F.  0. 
Rosen miiller  has  admirably  condensed  this  discussion  of  the 
Gottingen  Professor  in  his  excellent  little  work  entitled,  "  The 
Biblical  Geography  of  Central  Asia." 

Yes,  we  have  yet  among  us  a  great  portion  of  the  prodigious 
pile  raised  by  united  mankind  before  its  dispersion  —  three 
stories  out  of  eight  —  and  men  of  our  time  have  actually 
handled  the  very  same  "  fire-burnt  bricks "  mentioned  in 
Genesis :  "Jfaciamus  lateres  et  coquamus  eos  igni^  This 
positive  discovery,  corroborated  by  the  inscriptions  found  on 
the  spot,  and  interpreted  by  Frangois  Lenormant,  render  easy 
of  belief  the  remainder  of  the  story — that  the  builders  had  to 
part  company  and  look  for  distinct  habitations,  because  they 
could  no  more  understand  each  other.  And  this  was  the  first 
and  sufficient  cause  of  division  among  them.* 

*  George  Rawlinson  in  his  "  Five  Great  Monarchies"  (Vol.  I.,  page  21) 
seems  to  object  entirely  to  the  identity  of  the  ruins  of  Birs-Nimrod  with 
the  Temple  of  Belus  and  the  Tower  of  Babel.  He  relies  on  cuneiform 


IXTRODUCTOEY.  43 

This  want  of  mutual  agreement,  resulting  from  difference  of 
utterances,  has  been  ever  since  a  powerful  source  of  discord, 
nay,  of  bitter  enmity.  Every  one  finds  no  difficulty  in  ad- 
mitting it  who  is  aware  of  the  fact  so  often  mentioned  in 
antiquity,  of  anger  and  wrath  immediately  appeased  and 
changed  into  sympathy  by  the  sudden  discovery  of  a  common 
speech.  "Who  has  not  witnessed,  even  in  our  days,  men  thrown 
by  various  circumstances  at  a  great  distance  from  their  country, 
among  people  of  a  different  race,  and  language,  becoming  at 
once  intimate  friends,  as  it  were,  because  of  their  discovering 
by  chance,  through  a  few  words  spoken  at  random,  that  they 
were  bom  under  the  same  sky,  and  came  originally  from  the 
same  province  or  city  ?  If  such  is  the  power  of  a  common 
tongue  to  excite  in  the  hearts  of  men  warm  feelings  of  reciprocal 
affection,  we  cannot  wonder  that  a  different  state  of  things 
produces  altogether  contrary  results,  and  that  the  impossibility 
of  understanding  each  other  is  immediately  the  cause  of  dis- 
trust at  first,  and  soon  of  mutual  contempt  and  hatred.  How 
is  it  that  uneducated  people,  transplanted  to  a  strange  country, 
invariably  pronounce,  with  assurance,  that  the  language  of  this 
nation,  foreign  to  them,  is  barbarous  and  far  inferior  to  their 
own,  when  they  have  notr  through  ignorance,  the  most  necessary 
means  of  comparison  ?  We  have  no  doubt  that  when  the  fol- 

inscriptions  for  placing  them  in  a  city  of  Borsip  or  Borsippa,  distinct 
from  Babylon,  and  thinks  they  are  the  debiis  <<f  a  temple  of  Nebo — a  god 
far  posterior  to  Belus.  But  in  his  second  volume,  page  53i,  he  modifies 
considerably  his  opinion,  and  states  that  "  the  Birs-Nimrod  had  certainly 
seven,  probably  eight,  stages — stories — and  it  is  the  only  ruin  on  the  pres- 
ent western  bank  of  the  Euphrates  which  is  at  once  sufficiently  grand  to 
answer  to  the  description  of  the  Belus  temple,  and  sufficiently  near  to  the 
other  ruins  to  make  its  original  inclusion  within  the  walls  not  absolutely 
impossible.  Hence  ....  opinion  has  been  divided  on  the  question,  and 
there  have  not  been  wanting  persons  to  maintain  that  the  Birs-Nimrod 
is  the  true  Temple  of  Belus.''  In  a  note  he  names  those  "  persons," 
namely,  not  only  Mr.  Rich,  Major  Rennell,  Sir  R.  Ker  Porter  and, 
Heeren  ;  but  Xiebuhr  in  1826,  and  "  recently,"  he  adds,  "  they  have  been 


44  GENTILISM. 

lowers  of  Nimrod  were  hunting  beasts  and  men  in  the  plains 
of  Mesopotamia  or  around:  the  Persian  Gulf,  they  made  very 
little  difference  between  both,  because  both  appeared  to  them 
deprived  of  speech ;  and  the  men,  women,  and  children  whom 
they  captured  and  bound  with  cords,  appeared  to  them  as 
unintelligent  as  the  beasts  of  the  field,  which  they  drove 
together  on  their  return  to  Babylon.  The  nations  of  antiquity 
which  subdued  foreign  people  and  wished  to  keep  them  in  sub- 
jection, never  allowed  them  to  use  the  language  of  their  con- 
querors, and  thus  originated,  probably,  the  distinction  of  the 
"  sacred "  and  "  popular  "  idioms  in  Egypt,  India,  and  Iran. 
In  modern  times,  on  'the  contrary,  the  kingdoms  or  empires 
whose  rulers  wish  to  arrive  at  a  complete  unity  and  peace 
among  their  subjects,  insist  on  having  one  prevalent  and  uni- 
versal language  with  the  ultimate  object  of  abolishing  gradually 
all  the  other  primitive  dialects  and  idioms.  Greece  and  Rome 
were  the  first  to  inaugurate  the  policy  now  universally  followed 
among  civilized  nations.  It  is  remarkable  that  no  religion, 
except  the  Jewish  and  the  Roman  Catholic,  -has  ever  insisted 
on  a  common  language  for  sacrifice  and  liturgy  among  tribes 
of  different  origin  although  professing  the  same  faith. 

We  can  see,  therefore,  how,  from  the  beginning  of  mankind, 
diversity  of  speech  began  to  oppose  the  universality  of  the 

described  and  copiously  illustrated  by  Mr.  Oppert"  ("Expedition  Scien- 
tifique,"  torn.  I.  pp.  200-216).  These  "  persons  "  are  respectable  enough. 
But  a  very  remarkable  corroboration  of  our  belief  on  the  subject  is 
found  in  a  most  interesting  study  by  Mr.  Francois  Lenormant  on  a  num- 
ber of  cuneiform  inscriptions  brought  to  England  by  Mr.  Layard,  and  in 
which  the  learned  Frenchman  thinks  he  has  discovered  a  first  Chaldean 

*  ( 

empire  anterior  to  the  one  described  by  Sir  G.  Rawlinson.  He  calls  this 
most  ancient  people  the  Accads,  whose  chief  city  was  the  Accad  men- 
tioned in  Gen.  x.  10. 

In  one  of  the  poems  whose  translation  he  attempts;  is  frequently  men- 
tioned "  the  Hoase  with  its  head  erect" — "the  House  of  the  right  hand," 
etc. ;  and  Mr.  Lenormant,  grouping  all  the  details,  sees  evidently  in  it  the 
celebrated  "  Tower  Qf  languages,"  as  he  calls  it  from  the  inscription  it- 


INTRODUCTORY.  45 

same  religion,  and  how  the  primitive  traditions  and  dogmas 
given  at  first  by  the  Almighty  Himself  to  man,  were  gradually 
to  become  dim,  and  finally  to  disappear  almost  altogether,  by 
the  action  of  various  causes,  of  which  the  fact  now  under  con- 
sideration was  to  be  one  of  the  most  powerful.  These  con- 
siderations enable  us  likewise  to  acknowledge  the  profound 
wisdom  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  place  before  us  vividly 
the  reason  why  she  has  always  attached  such  an  importance  to 
the  use  of  the  same  idiom  in  her  liturgy  and  sacraments,  and 
always  granted,  with  an  evident  reluctance,  the  privilege 
of  using  a  different  one  to  some  branches  of  the  true  Church, 
but  only  to  those  whose  origin  went  to  the  Apostolic  period. 

We  cannot  know,  it  is  true,  what  length  of  time  it  took 
exactly  for  men  to  forget  their  former  dialects,  and  acquire 
new  ones,  nor  how  many  were  thus  originally  formed ;  but 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  from  that  epoch  began  the  state  of 
things  wre  now  witness,  when  the  number  of  distinct  languages 
is  so  immeasurably  great,  and  opposes  such  a  barrier  to  inter- 
communication among  men.  Many,  no  doubt,  in  subsequent 
times,  originated  naturally  among  nations  unacquainted  with 
the  art  of  writing,  by  which  alone  language  is  fixed,  and  be- 
comes durable ;  and  thus,  certainly,  were  formed  numerous 

self.  He  is  most  decidedly  of  the  opinion  that  this  edifice  was  at  Borsippa, 
and,  consequently,  at  the  modern  Birs-Nimrod ;  and  he  says  that  "  this 
venerable  monument,  with  which  so  many  legends  are  associated,  was, 
even  at  the  epoch  of  the  composition  of  the  Accadian  poem,  in  the  dilapi- 
dated state  in  which  Nebuchadnezzar  found  it  when  he  undertook  its 
repair.  '  The  temple  of  the  seven  lights  of  the  earth,  the  Pyramid  ot 
Borsippa,'  says  the  Assyrian  king,  in  a  preserved  inscription,  'has  been 
constructed  by  the  most  ancient  king  of  all ;  ....  but  he  could  not  crown 
the  top  of  the  edifice;  ....  consequently  the  rains  and  the  storms  had 
worn  away  what  was  built  interiorly  with  unburnt  bricks,  and  thus  the 
exteiior  construction  of  fire-burnt  bricks  had  split.  .  .  .'" 

The  whole  composition  of  the  learned  French  Academician,  under  the 
title  pf  ''  Un  Veda  Chaldeen,''  ought  to  be  read ;  it  will  be  found  in  the 
92d  vol.  of  u  Le  Correspondant." 


46  GENTILISM. 

idioms  of  North  American  Indian  nations.  But  as  there  are 
certainly  hmnan  languages  which  do  not  possess  any  number 
of  roots  in  common,  such  a  catastrophe  as  the  one  described  in 
Chapter  xi.  of  Genesis,  can  alone  explain  this  complete  antago- 
nism of  tongues,  if  we  believe  the  truth  of  the  unity  of  man- 
kind. 

To  this  first  source  of  division  among  men  was  added  a  much 
more  powerful  one,  that  of  the  diversity  of  races.  "We  know, 
from  the  tenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  that  the  posterity  of  the 
three  sons  of  Noah  was  distributed  over  the  surface  of  the  old 
world,  and  that  the  three  continents  were  occupied  by  the 
various  nations  which  sprung  from  them.  They  would  have, 
henceforth,  only  one  bond  of  union :  the  same  patriarchal 
religion  based  on  primitive  traditions ;  and  that  bond  of  unity 
itself  would  be  gradually  loosened  by  the  opposing  forces  of 
difference  of  language,  of  race,  etc.,  which  would,  in  course  of 
time,  introduce  idolatry  with  all  its  accompanying  errors  and 
crimes,  and  render  the  unity  of  worship,  humanly  speaking,  im- 
possible, and  the  existence  of  national  religions  universal  over 
the  globe  ;  so  that  the  future  catholicity  of  the  Church  would 
become  visibly  a  divine -fact,  impossible  in  truth  without  the 
direct  intervention  of  God. 

The  inspired  author  of  Genesis  intended  certainly  to  explain 
in  his  tenth  chapter  the  spread  of  nations  over  the  various 
regions  of  the  earth.  The  names  contained  in  it  are  under- 
stood by  many  modern  exegetists,  chiefly  Protestant,  to  be  the 
names  of  tribes.  Catholic  commentators  generally  think  they 
are  the  names  of  individuals.  Some  were,  certainly,  individ- 
uals, as  Nimrod  and  Canaan  ;  others  were  undoubtedly  nations, 
as  the  Philistine,  and  most  of  those  having  the  same  termina- 
tion. But  whether  individuals  or  nations,  the  various  races  of 
men  which  have  since  formed  the  whole  of  mankind,  were  cer- 
tainly derived  from  them. 

The  origin  of  those  human  varieties  which  we  call  races,  is 


INTRODUCTORY.  47 

clouded  in  mystery.  When  we  see  the  persistence  of  the 
national  character  in  each  social  family,  resisting,  during  long 
ages,  all  opposing  forces,  and  exhibiting  the  same  features 
after  thousands  of  years ;  when  we  contemplate  each  nation 
or  tribe,  forming,  as  it  were,  a  compact  and  almost  indestruct- 
ible unity ;  when  we  mark  how  the  striking  differences  be- 
tween contiguous  peoples  continue,  passing  from  fathers  to 
sons,  without  even  dove-tailing  in  the  very  points  of  contact 
between  each  and  each ;  we  demand  a  cause  for  all  those  strange" 
phenomena,  and  we  can  scarcely  see  any  other  than  the  diversity 
of  progenitors.  Hence,  we  all  say  that  these  differences  are 
in  the  blood ;  and  we  think  we  have  said  enough.  The  op- 
posers  of  the  unity  of  mankind  would  have  here  the  basis  of  a 
strong  argument  in  their  favor,  if,  unfortunately  for  them,  it 
did  not  go  too  far  ;  as  it  is  clear  that  the  origin  of  the  human 
race  cannot  be  so  multiform,  and  that  one  Adam  is  yet  more 
acceptable  to  reason  than/bw  orfitie  hundred. 

All  things  considered,  the  most  sensible  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject is  that  God  presided  at  this  arrangement,  which  entered 
into  the  plan  of  His  providence  throughout  the  future  history 
of  man.  And  we  think  that  He  Himself  gave  to  each  pro- 
genitor of  a  race  the  distinguishing  characteristics  which  were 
to  pass  to  all  its  future  members.  The  otherwise  unaccount- 
able permanence  of  these  characteristics  is  a  strong  support  of 
this  opinion.  The  progenitor  himself  may  be  any  individual 
in  the  line  of  ancestry,  chosen  by  God  for  some  reason  of  His 
own. 

Yet  we  admit  there  is  a  great  deal  of  truth  in  the  supposi- 
tion maintained  by  several  modern  writers  of  note,  that  many 
of  those  diversities  arose  from  the  various  circumstances  in 
which  the  descendants  of  the  sons  of  !Noah  were  placed,  with 
respect  chiefly  to  the  special  character  of  the  dwelling  they 
chose.  Thus,  as  we  have  seen,  it  looks  as  probable  that  the 

inhabitants  of  the  north  of  Asia  from  east  to  west,  down  to  the 
5 


48  GENTILISM. 

50th  degree  of  latitude,  became  hunters  and  fishermen,  owing 
to  the  multiplicity  of  game,  whose  flesh  and  fur  they  needed, 
and  to  the  abundance  of  fish  in  the  seas  and  the  large  rivers 
of  Siberia ;  and  thus  the  chief  habits  and  characteristics  of 
those  nations  were  acquired.  Similarly  the  immense  plains 
deprived  of  trees  and  covered  only  with  herbage,  forming  the 
whole  of  Asia  from  east  to  west,  between  the  50th  and  40th 
degrees  of  latitude,  originated  the  pastoral  habits  of  the  nomad 
Tartars  dwelling  in  those  regions  from  the  beginning.  Finally, 
the  rich  agricultural  countries  of  Asia,  from  the  40th  degree 
downwards,  furnished  to  their  inhabitants  the  determining  mo- 
tive for  their  social  lif e,  and  enabled  them  to  cultivate  literature, 
the  arts,  and  the  sciences,  together  with  agriculture,  which 
have  rendered  Persia,  Hindostan,  and  China  so  celebrated  from 
a  very  early  period. 

This  may,  no  doubt,  explain  some  divergences  in  the  social 
and  physical  life  of  many  peoples,  but  not  all  the  facts  by 
which  they  differ ;  and  the  diversity  of  races  is  alone  adequate 
to  this  explanation. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  causes  originating  that 
great  variety  remarked  in  the  nations  of  antiquity  and  of  mod- 
ern times,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the  opposition  of  temper,  in- 
clinations, aptitudes  introduced  by  this  dissimilitude,  became 
an  immense  obstacle  to  moral  unity  among  mankind.  Hence 
the  institutions  which  have  always  ruled  Arabia  could  never 
prevail  in  contiguous  Persia  or  Iran.  And  this  last  country 
was  at  all  times  in  antagonism  with  the  nations  of  the  north 
or  of  Turan ;  and  thus  of  all  the  others.  Nothing  is  more 
•striking  in  human  history  than  this  mutual  opposition  and 
antagonism,  the  source  of  all  the  wars  and  of  most  of  the  calam- 
ities wrhich  have  afflicted  mankind.  And  this  can  almost  in- 
variably be  traced  to  difference  of  race  among  men.  It  is  clear 
that  a  merely  human  religion  cannot  overcome  such  an  obstacle 
as  this  to  unity — hence  all  false  religions  are  national  ;: — and 


IXTKODUCTORY.  49 

with  such  a  constant  and  powerful  cause  of  divergence,  what 
was  first  common  among  men  becomes  gradually  weakened 
and  finally  must  disappear.  Thus  the  common  traditions  im- 
parted to  mankind  by  the  first  utterances  of  divine  revelation, 
grew,  by  degrees,  more  and  more  dim,  vague,  and  uncertain, 
until  they  were  altoge'ther  veiled  and  obliterated  by  the  succes- 
sive additions  and  perversions  of  error.  To  establish  this  in 
detail,  is  the  purpose  of  this  book. 

That  special  spirit  which  characterizes  each  nationality,  and 
gives  it  the  peculiar  aspect  by  which  it  is  distinguished  from  any 
other,  soon  grew  to  such  prominence  that  the  features  of  our 
common  humanity  almost  disappeared ;  and  men  came,  at 
length,  to  consider  all  other  races  as  enemies,  so  that  the  very 
name  of  foreigner  became  synonymous  with  barbarian  or  foe. 
The  geographical  limits  by  which  they  were  separated  became 
the  scene  of  a  constant  border  war ;  and  unless  high  mountains 
or  extensive  deserts  intervened,  the  mutual  depredations  and 
the  incessant  depopulation  going  on  in  those  almost  mutual 
grounds  prevented  everywhere  the  delimitation*  of  precise 
frontiers,  which,  in  the  history  of  man,  has  generally  charac- 
terized Christian  Europe  alone.  In  our  own  America  it  is  well 
known  that  the  Mexican  JCmperor  considered  the  countries 
around  his  dominions  as  veritable  nurseries  of  men,  having  no 
other  object  but  to  furnish  his  subjects  with  slaves  and  the 
altars  of  his  gods  with  victims.  Such  was  also  in  general  the 
ideas  powerful  nations  of  antiquity  had  of  their  surrounding 
neighbors.  Among  the  primitive  Romans  themselves  the 
word  "  hostis,"  which  was  applied  by  them  to  nearly  all  foreign 
tribes,  had  no  other  derivation  than  the  word  "hostia" — 
victim  ;  and  the  old  Greek  dramatists  tell  us  what  was  the  fate 
of  shipwrecked  strangers  stranded  on  their  shores. 

The  early  unity  of  mankind  had,  therefore,  in  a  few  centuries, 
been  altogether  forgotten,  and  was  replaced  by  division,  enmi- 
ty, and  war.  And  this  unhappy  state  of  things  was  the  fruit 


50  GENTILISM. 

of  the  antipathy  produced  by  diversities  of  race,  and  by  the 
long-continued  separation  of  the  various  families  of  nations. 
Egotism  had  entered  into  those  partitions  of  the  globe  destined 
to  be  the  dwellings  of  each ;  every  distinct  territory  had  become 
a  lair  of  wild  beasts,  and  mankind  appeared  to  be  irremediably 
sundered  and  split  into  hundreds  of  hostile  fragments,  because 
according  to  Scripture  (Gen.  xi.  '9),  Disperait  eos  Dominus. 
su/per  faciem  cunctarum  regionum. 

Thus,  likewise,  the  very  configuration  of  the  globe  which, 
as  we  have  before  urged,  was  intended  primarily  as  a  bond  of 
union  among  men,  became  a  new  source  of  division.  Hence- 
forth the  mountain-chains,  the  great  rivers,  the  inland  seas,  and 
the  all-surrounding  ocean  were  to  be  truly  dividing  lines,  which 
nations  dared  not  cross,  in  view  of  a  sure  hostility  on  the  far- 
ther side.  Occasionally  an  insignificant  stream  became  a  Rubi- 
con, impassable  except  by  the  most  daring  spirits  ;  and  strange 
to  say,  it  was  only  in  the  interminable  deserts  of  Africa,  and 
•  the  immense  plains  of  Central  and  Southern  Asia,  that,  united 
in  lai'ge  caravans,  men  travelled  to  a  great  distance  for  the  pur- 
poses of  commerce.  Every  pleasant  country  became  forbidden 
ground  for  all  those  not  born  in  it.  The  words  of  Scripture 
placed  at  the  head  of  this  first  chapter,  appeared  no  more  to  be 
true.  The  earth  in  all  its  amplitude  did  no  more  belong  to  the 
Lord,  and  man  lived  in  each  small  district  of  it  as  a  prisoner 
kept  within  bounds. 

The  vastness  of  the  ocean,  the  breadth  of  large  fluvial  cur- 
rents, the  height  of  mountain-chains,  the  barrenness  of  sandy 
or  rocky  wildernesses,  had,  in  fact,  become  great  fences,  inside 
of  which  the  different  races  of  men  were  "  parked,"  and  kept 
apart  from  each  other,  until  in  the  designs  of  God,  these  bar- 
riers were  to  be  lowered  down,  or  thrown  everywhere  open,  by 
the  future  discoveries  in  navigation,  aided  by  the  introduction 
of  a  new  spirit'  of  universal  brotherhood  :  a  spirit  which  no  re- 
ligion for  many  ages  fostered,  and  which  was  to  be  ushered  in 


INTRODUCTORY.  51 

finally  among  men  by  the  only  one  destined  in  future  times 
to  spread  and  rule  everywhere ;  which  the  Jewish  religion 
was  not. 

The  most  superficial  acquaintance  with  ancient  history  dis- 
closes the  facts  just  enunciated.  Men  could  scarcely  know  the 
nations  living  at  some  distance  from  them,  since  the  very  next 
neighbors  were  real  enemies.  To  whatever  extent  may  be  sup- 
posed to  have  gone  the  incursions  of  a  Nimrod,  and  a  Semi- 
ramis  in  the  far  East,  of  a  Sesostris  in  Syria  and  Asia  Minor,  of 
other  conquerors  in  those  primitive  ages,  these  few  sudden  ex- 
plosions of  the  fury  of  conquest  form  but  a  few  short-lived 
exceptions  in  the  general  history  of  those  remote  ages,-  in 
which  mankind  was  in  fact  cut  up  in  an  infinite  number  of 
small  tribes,  governed  each  of  them  by  a  petty  ruler  dignified 
with  the  name  of  king.  The  reader  of  Holy  Scripture  knows 
how  Abraham,  with  his  three  hundred  and  eighteen  men, 
fought  and  conquered  four  of  those  chieftains  near.  Damascus, 
and  delivered  Lot  from  their  hands.  The  fourteenth  chapter 
of  Genesis,  in  which  this  victory  is  recorded,  deserves  indeed  to 
be  carefully  studied,  in  order  to  form  an  exact  idea  of  society 
in  those  far-distant  ages.  Yet,  antecedently  to  Abraham,  and 
during  his  time,  communications  on  foot  or  on  the  back  of 
camels  were  much  more  easy  than  .they  became  afterwards ; 
since  the  population  of  many  large  districts  was  as  yet  sparse, 
and  patriarchal  manners  were  still  prevalent.  Men  had  not  yet 
heard  of  the  strict'  regulations  of  despotism,  nor  of  the  harsh 
measures  taken  by  the  egotistic  municipalities  which  soon 
followed. 

Modem  researches  in  the  oldest  annals  of  mankind  have 
placed  beyond  question  the  fact  that  in  India,  Bactriana,  Iran, 
as  well  as  in  heroic  Greece  and  Pelasgic  Europe  in  general,  the 
tribal  state  of  society  appears  to  have  been  the  first,  and  to  have 
everywhere  preceded  the  great  empires  recorded  afterwards  in 
history ;  and  we  shall  have  occasion  to  show  that  it  lasted  far 


52  GENTILISM. 

longer  than  men  generally  suppose,  coming  down,  in  fact,  very 
near  to  our  time. 

Not  that  barbarism  was  everywhere  the  first  stage  of  humani- 
ty. For  the  clan  system  exists  invariably  with  real  civilization  ; 
and  the  clanship  of  primitive  Hindostan,  for  instance,  endowed 
with  the  Sanscrit  language  and  literature,  can  very  well  compare 
with  many  modern  social  institutions  which  boast  of  being  civ- 
ilized. But  the  state  of  Syria  in  the  time  of  Abraham,  so  admir- 
ably described  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis,  so  compati- 
ble with  a  happy  state  of  society  in  spite  of  occasional  wars, 
seems  to-  have  been  generally  the  position  in  which  men 
lived  everywhere,  immediately  after  the  dispersion  of  man- 
kind. 

An  immense  drawback,  however,  resulted  from  the  chief 
characteristic  of  that  system,  namely :  an  endless,  and  scarcely 
imaginable  for  us,  division ;  such  a  disintegration  of  society, 
that  it  soon  became  very  difficult  to  travel  from  one  point  of  the 
globe  to  the  other.  What  has  been  said,  not  very  exactly,  of  the 
middle  ages,  that  in  the  dark  period  of  that  name,  men  were  afraid 
of  losing  sight  of  the  steeple  under  the  shadow  of  which  they  were 
bom ;  and  that,  before  travelling  from  Paris  to  Lyons  in  France, 
they  invariably  wrote  their  last  will  and  testament,  can  be  surely 
asserted  of  the  long  period  of  time  following  the  first  free  and 
easy  patriarchal  manners.  It  was  then  a  kind  of  feudal  divi- 
sion of  society  carried  to  its  utmost  limits,  and  by  referring  to 
the  twelfth  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Joshua,  the  reader  will  see 
how  many  different  kingdoms  there  were  then  in  a  small  part  of 
Palestine. 

It  was  only  with  arms  in  their  hands,  and  in  comparatively 
great  numbers,  that  men  could  pass  from  place  to  place  ;  either 
to  colonize  countries  yet  void  of  inhabitants,  or  to  establish 
themselves  in  regions  already  occupied,  but  from  which  they 
first  drove  away  the  population. 

This  explains  perfectly  the  endless  subdivisions  of  idolatry, 


INTRODUCTOKY.  53 

as  each  city,  each  district  came  to  have  its  gods  and  its  religious 
rites.  And  hence  arose  the  impossibility  of  modern  social  writers 
combining  into  any  system  the  theological  opinions  of  any  single 
nation.  Greek  mythology,  for  instance,  is  formed  of  so  many 
discordant  elements,  belonging  to  hostile  cities  into  which  the 
country  was  divided  at  the  beginning,  that  the  task  of  hannoe 
nizing  the  whole  is  perfectly  hopeless. 

The  readers  of  Herodotus  know  how  far  this  good  man 
travelled  to  ascertain  the  truth  with  respect  to  Hercules,  and 
how,  finding  the  legend  of  the  hero  so  different  in  Egypt,  in 
Phoanicia,  and  in  Greece,  he  gave  up  the  attempt  in  despair, 
and  could  not  solve  the  problem  but  by  the  supposition  of 
three  different  men  of  that  name. 

The  difficulty,  in  fact,  of  travelling  through  any  continent 
or  large  island  in  those  times  became  such,  that  even  the  sea 
appeared  closed  to  the  efforts  of  early  navigators,  through  the 
fear  inspired  by  the  certain  hostility  to  be  met  with  at  a  com- 
paratively short  distance  from  the  point  of  starting.  Thus  the 
Argonautic  expedition  to  Colchis,  across  the  Black  Sea,  became 
truly  an  heroic  undertaking,  and  sufficed  to  inspire  poets  and 
historians  so  as  to  immortalize  the  few  bold  spirits  who  dared 
the  attempt. 

"We  can  judge,  by  this  single  instance,  of  the  state  to  which 
human  society  was  reduced,  and  how  truly  insurmountable 
appeared  to  be  the  obstacles  opposed  to  common  intercourse 
among  men.  Who  could  then  have  imagined  that  the  time 
would  come  when  a  universal  religion  would  be  proclaimed  for 
the  acceptance  of  all,  and  when  the  evils  consequent  on  the 
first  dispersion  of  mankind  would  be  remedied  as  far  as  human 
imperfection  can  allow  it  ? 

So  far,  we  have  said  nothing  of  the  variations  of  climate  to 
which  the  human  race  was  subjected  by  its  very  aptitude  for 
inhabiting  the  whole  globe ;  and  thisVas  certainly  another  pow- 
erful cause  of  division  among  men. 


54  .         GENTILISM. 

"We  have  seen  how  man  differs  from  animals  in  that  remark- 
able adaptability  to  every  geographical  zone.  It  seems  that  at 
first  mankind  spread  chiefly  under  the  tropics,  and  the  most 
powerful  empires  of  antiquity  are  found  to  have  flourished  in 
warm  regions.  Yet  the  sons  of  Japhet,  from  the  start,  took 
the  north  chiefly  as  their  portion,  and  gradually  the  whole 
globe  was  peopled.  But  how  different,  after  a  few  generations, 
became  the  inhabitants  of  the  tropics  from  those  of  the  cold 
zones ! 

We  have  only  to  compare  in  our  days  the  natives  of  equa- 
torial Africa  with  those  of  the  temperate  regions  of  Asia  or 
Europe,  to  judge  at  once  of  it.  Civilization  ought  not  prop- 
erly to  enter  as  a  factor  in  the  problem,  since  civilization  to  a 
great  degree  is  independent  of  climate,  as  the  nations  of  the 
highest  culture  in  antiquity  were  those  of  Southern  Egypt  and 
Gangetic  India.  But  it  cannot  be  denied  that  mild  or  fero- 
cious disposition,  precocious  or  sluggish  intellect,  impulsive  or 
well-balanced  nature,  depend  in  a  great  degree  on  the  direct  dis- 
tance from  the  equator  or  from  the  poles.  Hence  the  old  Per- 
sian Empire,  which  spread  so  easily  as  far  as  the  Indian  Ocean 
in  Asia,  and  the  southern  borders  of  Meroe  in  Central  Africa, 
could  not  cross  the  Danube  in  the  north,  and  remained,  in  fact, 
limited  to  the  southern  coast  of  the  Black  Sea.  The  Roman 
Empire,  on  the  contrary,  made  for  middle  latitudes,  never 
crossed  permanently  the  Euphrates  in  Asia,  and  possessed  of 
Africa  only  the  northern  borders.  The  Mongolian  Tartars,  it 
is  true,  spread  both  north  and  south ;  but  they  never  formed 
an  empire  properly  so  called.  Theirs  was  a  fitful  and  barba- 
rous life,  never  merging  in  any  permanent  and  positive  settle- 
ment. If  the  Mongols  reigned  for  a  long  time  in  Hindostan, 
they  owed  it  to  millions  of  Mahometan  subjects  who  had  come 
originally  from  Persia.  The  Mongol  Tartars  themselves 
formed  always  a  very  small  part  of  the  people,  and  it  may  be 
doubted  if  many  of  their  descendants  can  be  found  in  Hindo- 


INTRODUCTORY.  55 

stan  at  this  time,  although  the  Mahometan  population  amounts 
to  about  ten  millions. 

There  is  naturally  an  extreme  difficulty  of  coalescing  between 
peoples  of  extreme  geographical  range  ;  and  if  the  English  re- 
main in  possession  of  Hindostan  two  centuries  longer,  we  think 
it  very  probable  that  the  broad  line  which  divides  now  the  two 
races,  will  be  then  as  broad  and  impassable  as  it  seems  now 
to  be. 

What  renders  the  cause  of  division  more  effective  is  the  well- 

* 

known  and  remarkable  fact,  that  the  natives  of  the  most  un- 
.pleasant  and  deleterious  climates  can  scarcely  adapt  themselves 
to  milder  countries.  They  soon  die  away  in  regions  in  which 
there  appears  every  probability  that  they  would  thrive.  No 
Esquimau  can  live  south  of  Cape  Farewell  in  Greenland,  and 
an  original  inhabitant  of  equatorial  Australia,  transplanted  into 
England,  would  as  soon  disappear  as  would  any  of  the  black 
swans  swarming  in  the  rivers  of  its  native  country,  taken  sud- 
denly to  English  waters  or  Scotch  lakes. 

Civilized  man,  it  is  true,  can  adapt  himself  to  all  climates  by 
his  foresight  and  intellect,  but  even  in  his  case  it  requires  a 
long  period  of  time  for  his  posterity  to  become  perfectly  ac- 
climated. . 

It  is  true,  that  the  differences  of  race  and  language,  the  diffi- 
culty of  communication  by  travel,  and  the  climatic  variations, 
might  have  been  overcome  to  a  great  degree,  and  have  left  to 
the  human  race  a  power  of  aggregation,  which  for  several  thou- 
sand years  it  never  had,  if  God  had  condescended  to  establish 
for  its  advantage  a  central  focus  of  authority  or  direction.  But 
nothing  of  the  kind  existed  during  all  the  centuries  which  pre- 
ceded the  preaching  of  Christ  and  the  establishnrent  of  the 
Church.  Yet  a  sort  of  unity  was  preserved  among  men  for 
many 'centuries  owing  to  the  holy  truths  originally  given  to, 
mankind.  And  a  counterpoise  to  the  many  causes  of  division 
previously  mentioned,  would  have  been  found  in  them,  if  this 


56  GENTILISM. 

deposit  of  faith  and  morality,  such  as  it  was,  had  been  entrusted 
to  some  competent  authority  to  keep  and  explain. 

The  grand  expiation  imposed  on  mankind  for  its  insolent 
pride  at  the  erection  of  the  Tower  of  Babel,  was  to  last  for 
centuries  ;  and,  as  the  sin  had  been  one  of  combination  against 
God,  preserved  in  the  fable  of  the  Titans,  the  fittest  expiation 
•was  to  be  division,  expressed  so  powerfully  in  the  name  JPhaleg, 
given  by  heaven  itself  to  the  chief  patriarch  of  those  ancient 
days.  Hence  God  refused  to  the  human  race,  throughout  the 
period  of  time  allotted  in  the  Divine  counsels,  a  central  power 
able  to  hold  aloof  at  least  the  beacon-light,  calling  back  all 
men  to  the  memory  of  primitive  revelation.  It  is  true,  that  to 
supply  this  deficiency  to  a  certain  extent,  a  nation  was  called 
into  existence  for  the  very  purpose  of  preserving  always  bright 
and  clear,  what  was  soon  to  become  obscure  and  dim  among 
other  races.  The  Hebrew  people  was  not  only  destined  to  be 
a  kind  of  moral  centre  for  mankind — placed,  on  that  account, 
in  the  very  physical  centre  of  the  world; — but  a  directive 
authority  for  faith  and  morals  was  positively  established  in  the 
nation,  called  the  Synagogue,  faint  and  diminutive  figure  of  the 
future  universal  Church. 

But  although  the  social  destinies  of  the  Hebrew,  people  were 
intimately  connected  with  all  the  great  nations  of  antiquity  in 
the  midst  of  which  it  was  placed ;  although  the  Assyrians,  the 
Chaldseans,  the  Egyptians,  the  Persians,  and,  later,  the  Greeks 
and  the  Romans,  were  in  constant  communication  with  Jeru- 
salem and  the  Jews ;  although  all  those  various  races  had  under 
their  eyes  the  astonishing  spectacle  of  a  monotheist  people 
worshipping  Jehovah  alone,  and  preserving  the  ancient  moral 
code,  scarcely  modified,  from  the  time  of  Noah,- they  were  all 
blind  ;  a  veil  was  over  their  eyes,  as  St.  Paul  remarked  later  of 
.the  Jews  themselves  with  respect  to  Christ ;  they  could  not  see 
what  the  loving  intention  of  God  designed  they  should  see ;  and 
they  all  sunk  deeper  and  deeper  in  the  mire  of  idolatry,  atheism. 


INTRODUCTORY.  57 

and  vice,  in  spite  of  the  instructive  exemplar  of  the  truth  which 
they  all  saw  in  Judea.  Meanwhile  division  lasted,  and  appeared 
to  be  perpetual.  And  in  spite  of  those  brilliant  and  immense 
empires  which  succeeded  each  other,  city  remained  always 
hostile  to  city,  district  to  district,  tribe  to  tribe.  It  is  a  fact 
not  sufficiently  appreciated,  yet  admitted  now  by  all,  that  under 
the  dominion  of  the  Pharaohs,  even  during  the  magnificent 
period  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  there  was  no  other  union 
among  Egyptian  cities  than  the  will  of  the  despot,  and  at  that 
very  epoch  the  worshippers  of  the  crocodile  in  one  place  made 
incessant  war  against  the  worshippers  of  the  cat  in  another. 
The  ox  Apis  was  the  only  god  universally  respected,  on  account 
of  his  supposed  identity  with  Ammon. 

Again,  in  th.e  Persian  empire,  when  the  Achaemenidae  were  at 
the  acme  of  their  power  under  Xerxes,  the  innumerable  tribes 
which  obeyed  the  despot  of  Susa,  were  as  absolutely  distinct 
from  each  other,  nay,  as  fiercely  opposed  the  one  to  the  other, 
as  they  had  ever  been  previously;  and  to  become  convinced 
of  it,  the  reader  has  only  to  go  cursorily  over  the  catalogue  of 
those  nations  preserved  by  Herodotus  in  his  description  of  the 
army  of  the  Persian  king. 

The  same  must  be  said  of  the  Greek  empire  under  Alexander 
and  his  successors.  Rome,  in  fact,  was  the  first  to  insist,  not 
on  the  fusion  of  the  different  nationalities  she  had  conquered — 
she  never  dared  to  attempt  it  —  but  on  their  keeping  the  peace 
and  not  warring  on  each  other.  It  was  the  great  cause  of 
admiration  for  her  eulogists  that  she  had  •universally  imposed 
peace  on  her  subjects,  and  to  disturb  it  was  for  the  first  time  in 
human  history  pronoimced  to  be  a  crime,  which  Rome  was 
sure  and  prompt  to  avenge.  And,  let  the  reader  remark  it,  it 
was  just  on  the  eve  of  the  coming  of  the  Prince  of  Peace,  when 
the  protracted  division  of  mankind  was  to  come  finally  to  an 
end,  and  the  pristine  unity  was  to  be  replaced  by  a  higher  one, 
that  such  a  determination  was  solemnly  taken  by  the  People-king. 


58  GENTILISM. 

The  end,  therefore,  God  had  in  view  in  prescribing  to  the 
earth  its  configuration,  and  in  giving  to  mankind  one  progenitor, 
first  in  Adam  and  then  in  Noah,  was  kept  in  abeyance,  and 
instead  of  unity,  division  came  to  be  the  great  feature  of  the 
globe  itself  and  of  the  human  family.  The  ocean,  spread  every- 
where, and  penetrating  the  various  continents  with  its  deep  bays 
and  inland  seas,  intended  consequently  for  a  universal  element 
of  intercommunication,  became  an  impassable  abyss  over  which 
men  cast  their  shuddering  eyes  when  they  looked  out  upon  its 
shores.*  The  rivers,  and  the  mountains  from  which  they 
gushed  forth,  instead  of  being  highways  and  public  roads,  were 
turned  into  barriers  of  division,  behind  which  the  timorous  and 
hostile  tribes  looked  askance  at  each  other,  and  thought  only 
of  overreaching  their  neighbors,  changed  into  enemies.  That 
"  articulate  speech,"  so  celebrated  in  Homer  as  the  great  char- 
acteristic of  god-like  man,  and  by  which  he  is  raised  so  high 
above  the  lower  animals ;  the  mind's  medium  of  exchange,  the 
instrument  of  sweet  intercourse,  the  great  bond  of  unity  whilst 
remaining  in  itself  one,  was  split  into  thousands  of  idioms, 
every  one  unintelligible  to  those  who  spoke  any  one  of  the  rest, 
and  thus  reduced  every  insignificant  tribe  to  the  sad  condition 
of  looking  on  all  mankind  out  of  their  own  small  community 
as  if  it  was  really  deprived  of  speech,  and  composed  of  deaf  and 
dumb  individuals.  Religion,  finally,  the  worship  of  a  common 
Creator,  deprived  of  authoritative  teaching  and  of  a  central 
light,  became  the  greatest  source  of  division,  and  would  of 
itself  have  made  of  earth  a  real  hell,  inflamed  incessantly  by 
the  burning  fire  of  fanatical  hatred  and  war.f 

*  The  Phoenician  adventures  cannot  be  objected,  as  they  were  the  only 
ones  which  gradually  spread,  and  proved  by  their  success  that  all  the 
other  nations  experienced  the  feelings  described  in  the  text.  The 
Phoenicians  were  not,  first,  so  daring  as  they  became  later  on. 

t  The  religious  dissensions,  in  post-Christian  times,  result  from  op- 
position to  authoritative  teaching  ;  the  contrary  was  the  case  before 
Christ. 


IXTEODUCTORY.  59 

At  the  beginning  of  this  chapter  we  begged  of  the  reader 
to  consider  these  'preliminary  remarks  as  assertions  which  the 
sequel  would  abundantly  prove.  This  task  we  have  now  to 
undertake  ;  but  we  must  first  clear  the  ground  by  treating  suc- 
cinctly a  previous  question,  namely,  the  now  generally-sup- 
posed primitive  barbarism  of  the  human  race.  AH  our  future 
considerations  shall  certainly  tend  to  this,  but  not  exprofessoj 
and  it  is  proper,  at  the  very  beginning,  to  look  into  the  matter 
directly,  and  to  see  what  truth  there  is  in  many  positive  asser- 
tions of  the  day.  To  demonstrate  the  primitive  high  state 
of  man, — intellectually,  at  least, — it  is  fit  to  show  first  the  weak- 
ness of  modern  theories,  built  purposely  to  contradict  this 
truth.  When  it  is  established  that  nothing  has  been  really 
proved  by  the  numerous  geological  and  archaeological  dis- 
coveries made  lately  in  "Western  Europe,  in  opposition  to  the 
comparatively  modern  origin  of  our*  species,  then  it  will  be 
clearly  understood  that  history  and  tradition  have  not  lost  any 
of  their  real  value,  and  that  we  can  listen  to  their  voice  with- 
out fear  of  being  deceived  by  them.  If,  on  the  contrary,  the 
assertions  of  the  advocates  of  "  prehistoric  times "  had,  in 
truth  been  sufficiently  established,  the  demonstration  we 
propose  to  undertake  would  be  proportionately  weakened. 
Hence  the  manifest  importance  of  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  SUPPOSED  BARBARISM  OP  PRIMITIVE  MAN. 

THE  modern  doctrine  of  indefinite  human  progress,  either 
from  the  brute — according  to  the  followers  of  Mr.  Darwin — or, 
at  least,  from  the  lowest  condition  of  savage  life — if  we  believe 
Sir  John  Lubbock,  E.  B.  Tylor,  and  many  others  —  may  be 
called,  with  Dr.  O.  A.  Brownson,  "  the  creed  of  the  nineteenth 
century."  "  It  is  held  by  whole  multitudes,  with  unquestioning 
faith,  or,  rather,  with  the  blind  credulity  of  fanaticism.  It 
pervades  all  popular  literature,  even  most  scientific  treatises. 
It  is  iterated  and  reiterated  ad  nauseam  by  the  press,  from  the 
stately  quarterly,  the  infallible  daily,  down  to  the  seventy- 
nine  weekly.  With  not.  a  particle  of  evidence  to  sustain 
it,  treading  on  an  earth  covered  all  over  with  ruins,  we  know 
not  how  many  layers  deep,  with  the  unmistakeable  signs  of  de- 
terioration, weakness,  and  decay  everywhere  staring  us  in  the 
face,  we  yet  are  deluded  enough  to  assert  that  man  is  naturally 
progressive,  and  that  the  nations  now  pursue  a  steady  march 
towards  the  realization  of  an  earthly  paradise  much  more 
desirable  than  the  heaven  hoped  for  by  Christians."  (Brown- 
son's  Rev.,  Last  Series,  Yol.  I.,  pp.  226,  227.)  This  certainly  is 
true  of  our  age,  and  does  not  speak  highly  in  its  favor. 

But  we  are  here  concerned  only  with  the  pretended  starting- 
point  of  "  barbarism  ; "  the  study  of  "  progress  "  will  come 
later  on.  The  first  must  be  treated  apart  to  understand  well 
the  second. 


I. 


"We  have  already  discarded  the  consideration  of  the  zoological 
question  with  respect  to  the  origin  of  man.     "We  confine  our- 
(60) 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  61 

selves  to  the  historical  or  traditional  view  of  the  case.  An 
argument,  however,  adduced  lately  by  several  writers  on  the 
subject,  appears  to  us  decisive  and  final  on  the  zoological  ques- 
tion. And  as  it  will  not  detain  us  long,  we  are  unable  to  with- 
stand the  temptation  of  saying  a  word  or  two  upon  it. 

If  man  had  really  been  evolved  from  the  brute  by  an  indefi- 
nitely long  process  of  a  succession  of  specific  changes — the 
product  of  natural  selection — we  say  that  geology  would  have 
proved  it  long  ago,  and  neither  Mr.  Darwin,  nor  Lamark,  his 
predecessor,  would  have  invented  the  system.  The  forms  of  a 
great  number  of  extinct  species  are  forever  preserved  in  the 
fossil  state.  The  specific  characteristics  of  all  these  formerly 
organized  and  living  beings  are  so  precise  that  naturalists  intro- 
duce them  in  their  classifications,  and  we  know  that  Baron 
Cuvier  could,  from  a  single  bone  of  any  of  them,  reproduce  ' 
the  whole  lost  skeleton.  Not  a  single  fossil  yet  discovered  has 
been  found  in  the  incipient  stage  with  respect  to  any  of  its 
future  organs.  And,  by  a  strange  accident,  Mr.  Darwin  must 
place  this  universal  fact  in  the  chapter  of  accidents — none  of 
those  innumerable  organizations  which,  in  his  system,  must  • 
have  existed  prior  to  their  ultimately  reaching  the  well-defined 
characters  of  species  now  known  to  us,  has  been  allowed  to 
embalm  its  remains  in  the  universal  place  of  sepulture  for  all  ' 
former  beings — the  rocks  and  drift  deposits  of  former  ages. 

And  this  is  true,  not  only  of  the  "  ancestors "  of  man, 
according  to  Mr.  Darwin,  but  of  all  classes  of  ancient  animals, 
of  whatever  kind  they  may  be  supposed  to  be.  This,  in  our 
opinion,  cannot  be  an  accident,  but  is,  in  fact,  an  unanswerable 
refutation  of  the  system  of  evolution.  The  supposed  forma- 
tions in  embryo  have  never,  in  point  of  fact,  belonged  to  any 
zoological  system.  They  are  the  mere  phantoms  of  a  diseased 
imagination.  And  we  may  as  well  at  once  peremptorily  deny 
the  immense  series  of  ages  required  to  account  for  the  origin 
of  man  in  the  new  theory,  without  granting  to  its  supporters 


62  GENTILISM.      . 

the  privilege  of  a  serious  discussion,  which  the  matter  does  not 
deserve. 


II. 


"We  come,  therefore,  to  the  consideration  of  another  pre- 
tended proof  of  the  "  incalculable  "  antiquity  of  man,  and  hia 
primitive  barbarism,  namely :  the  well-ascertained  facts  of  what 
is  called  the  "  stone  period,"  everywhere  earlier ',  it  is  said,  than 
the  subsequent  periods  of  bronze  and  iron,  as  regards  the  whole 
human  species,  as  well  as  any  particular  tribe. 

We  admit  all  the  facts,  but  deny  the  anteriority  and  the 
subsequence  in  the  sense  we  shall  presently  explain.  We 
admit  the  facts,  with  the  remark,  however,  that  they  are  in- 
variably selected  so  as  to  make  a  perfect  caricature  of  "  prim- 
itive man."  All  the  ridiculous  customs,  all  the  filthy  habits, 
all  the  horrible  crimes  which  can  be  found  narrated  by  not 
over-scrupulous  travellers,  are  purposely  chosen  in  order  to  con- 
struct a  "  history  of  early  civilization."  At  least,  this  is  de- 
cidedly the  manner  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  his  followers. 
We  <Jo  not  think,  consequently,  that  the  premises  are  unob- 
jectionable. 

If  we  consult  other  travellers,  quoted  certainly  in  these 
books,  but  never  given  in  extenso,  namely  :  Catholic  mission- 
aries, we  find  the  state  of  the  case  to  be  quite  different.  With 
much  that  they  acknowledge  is  reprehensible,  they  relate  often 
admirable  things  calculated  to  raise  a  blush  on  the  face  of 
civilized  man.  Head  throughout  the  "  Jesuit  Relations"  as  to 
]!^orth  America,  the  startling  histories  of  the  "  Reductions  "  as 
in  the  south  of  this  continent,  and  all  the  details  given  by 
recent  missionaries  in  Polynesia,  and  you  will  be  able  to  com- 
plete the  pictures  of  which  Sir  John  Lubbock  has  presented 
only  the  revolting  side.  Read  chiefly  the  first  letters  of 
Columbus,  after  he  had  become  somewhat  acquainted  with  the 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  63 

primitive  inhabitants  of  Hispaniola.  Where  can  you  find  now 
on  earth  such  a  lovely  simplicity,  such  ingenuousness,  truth- 
fulness, and  candor,  such  artless  innocence,  if  we  can  use  the 
expression  with  respect  to  fallen  and  unregenerated  man  ?  And 
as  to  their  exterior  circumstances  and  habits,  where  will  you 
see  anywhere,  at  this  time,  such  a  truly  patriarchal  society, 
such  temperance  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  such  cleanliness  in 
their  dwellings,  their  persons,  and  all  their  surroundings? 
Those  who,  it  seems,  have  undertaken  the  task  of  degrading 
man  by  their  theories  on  his  origin,  and  the  supposed  history 
of  his  first  state,  would  do  well,  at  least,  to  relate  all  the  facts, 
since  they  rely  only  on  facts,  and  repudiate  with  contempt  all 
the  traditions  of  mankind  on  the  original  "  golden  age." 

These  few  observations  were  necessary,  in  order  to  qualify 
our  admission  of  the  numerous  quotations  contained  in  the 
works  of  Sir  John  Lubbock.  But  we  deny  the  supposed  ante- 
riority of  the  "  stone  period,"  and  the  "  subsequence  "  of  those 
of  bronze  and  iron  even ;  although,  on  the  very  hypothesis  we 
reject,  it  be  susceptible  of  proof  that  the  antiquity  of  man  is 
not  necessarily  on  this  account  indefinite,  and  that  the  length 
of  his  history  on  earth  can  very  well  fall  in  with  the  narrative  of 
our  sacred  books,  admitting  even  all  the  vagaries  of  the  Palaeo- 
lithic age,  as  F.  Lenormant  and  E.  Chevalier  have  done  in  their 
"  Manual  of  Ancient  History  of  the  East,"  with  which  we  do 
not  agree  altogether. 

We  must  first  acknowledge — and  we  do  it  with  real  pleasure — 
that  among  the  most  ardent  admirers  and  promoters  of  the  new 
discoveries,  many  give  them  a  meaning  perfectly  acceptable  to 
Christians.  Thus,  Mr.  John  Evans,  in  his  "  Stone  Implements, 
etc.,  of  Great  Britain,"  speaking  of  some  human  remains,  and 
objects  of  human  industry,  found  in  caves,  together  with  fossil 
animals  of  supposed  great  antiquity,  says  with  truth :  "  It  must 
never  be  forgotten,  that  the  occupation  of  caves  by  man  is  not 

confined  to  any  definite  period ;  and  that  even  in  the  case  of 
6 


64  GENTILISM. 

the  discovery  of  objects  of  human  workmanship  in  direct  asso- 
ciation with  the  remains  of  the  Paleistocene  extinct  mammals, 
their  contemporaneity  cannot  be  proven  without  careful  observa- 
tion of  the  circumstances  under  which  they  occur,  even  if  then." 
The  underline  is  ours.  "  Another  point  may  also  be  here  men- 
tioned, namely :  that  where  there  is  evidence  of  the  occupation 
of  a  cavern  by  man,  and  also  by  large. carnivora,  they  can  hardly 
have  been  tenants  in  common,  but  the  one  must  have  preceded 
the  other,  or  possibly  the  occupations  by  each  may  have  alter- 
nated more  than  once,"  etc. 

We  seldom  find  such  candid  admissions  in  the  works  of  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  and  their  meaning  is  plain.  It  is  scarcely  pos 
sible  to  draw  any  safe  conclusion  with  respect  to  the  antiquity 
of  man  from  all  the  discoveries  which  were  at  first  thought  by 
many  as  a  clear  refutation  of  the  "  Bible  records." 

The  impression  left  by  most  of  the  modern  books  on  the 
"  stone  and  other  periods,"  is  that,  in  the  main,  mankind  began 
everywhere  by  using  only  stone  implements ;  and  that  the  first 
utensils  used  were  of  the  most  rude  manufacture — in  fact,  just 
made  for  the  hands  of  an  "  anthropoid  ape,"  or  a  gorilla.  The 
writers  who  seem  to  take  such  a  lively  pleasure  in  thus  pictur- 
ing the  first  state  of  man,  have,  it  is  true,  the  condescension 
to  admit  that  those  three  great  periods  ought  not  to  be  sup- 
posed so  completely  independent  of  each  other,  that  no  stone 
implement  will  ever  be  found  in  deposits  of  the  bronze  and 
other  ages.  They  dove-tail  mutually,  they  say,  and  have  evi- 
dently passed  gradually  from  one  to  the  other.  And  this  ap- 
parent concession  is  precisely  of  such  a  nature  as  to  complete  the 
delusion,  and  render  their  system  simple,  natural,  and  probable. 
But  we  wonder  why  they  do  not  see  that,  even  with  this  con- 
cession, it  is  completely  opposed  to  the  true  state  of  the  case. 
Ifot  only  all  the  facts  which  have  been  found  out  do  not  sup- 
pose a  periodicity  of  the  kind  they  proclaim ;  but  they  evi- 
dently set  forth  the  real  contemporaneity  of  all  those  periods 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEISM    OF   PRIMITIVE   MAK.  65 

throughout  the  long  history  of  man.  If  in  each  nation  the  stone 
utensils  appear  first,  and  are  afterwards  followed  by  those  of 
bronze,  etc.,  does  not  much  concern  us,  when  we  wish  to  know 
the  real  progress  of  the  whole  of  mankind  ?  And  for  this  simple 
reason,  that  Denmark,  for  instance,  where  the  system  was  first 
broached,  is  not  mankind  in  itself,  but  a  very  small  part  of  it, 
and  it  is  too  palpable  a  sophism  to  argue  from  a  small  tribe  to 
the  aggregate  of  the  race — the  rude  fallacy,  in  short,  of  infer- 
ring a  universal  from  a  particular.  Should  they  insist  that  the 
same  happened  in  many  other  tribes,  the  sophism  remains  the 
same  ;  because  from  the  "  periodicity  "  in  any  given  number  of 
tribes,  their  conclusion  is  to  a  similar  periodicity  in  the  whole 
of  mankind.  When,  on  the  contrary,  the  palpable  fact  must  be 
known  to  all,  even  to  the  ardent  supporters  of  the  system  under 
consideration,  that  in  this  last  age  in  which  we  live,  in  the  pre- 
vious ages  wrhich  we  can  know  by  clear  and  unobjectionable 
history,  finally  in  the  dimmest  ages  of  antiquity  of  which  we 
possess  any  sufficiently  reliable  records,  the  three  "  periods"  of 
stone,  bronze,  and  iron  have  always  subsisted  simultaneously, 
and  consequently  are  no  more  "  periods  "  when  we  speak  of  the 
aggregate  of  mankind,  but  they  are  only  three  co-existing  as- 
pects of  the  same  specific  individual,  as  distinct  from  the  ape 
in  the  Polynesian  with  his  bone  hooks  and  stone  hatchets,  as  in 
the  highest  European,  with  all  the  paraphernalia  of  modern 
civilization. 

At  this  moment,  it  is  true,  the  number  of  geographical  spots 
where  man  is  unacquainted  with  metals,  is  gradually  and  stead- 
ily decreasing,  owing  to  the  universal  spread  of  the  Japhetic 
race,  together  with  the  complete  and  rapid  means  of  intercom- 
munication all  over  the  earth,  which  we  owe,  undoubtedly, 
to  human  ingenuity.  Yet  in  how  many  extensive  countries 
must  not  this  still  be  the  case !  The  whole  interior  of  the 
Australian  Continent,  and  the  large  island  of  New  Guinea  ad- 
jacent to  it,  besides  numerous  smaller  districts,  no  doubt  are 


66  GENTILISH. 

inhabited  only  by  what  modern  writers  call  primitive — in  our 
opinion,  really  degraded — men.  There  you  will  find  surely, 
fish-hooks  of  shark's  bone,  arrows  of  flint,  knives  of  obsidian, 
if  the  country  furnishes  it,  clubs  of  hard  wood,  and  axes  of 
basalt  or  quartz.  Let  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor  calculate  how  long  it 
will  take  for  those  tribes  to  pass  from  these  primitive  imple- 
ments to  metals  of  any  kind.  The  gentleman  is  positive,  that 
if  left  to  themselves,  those  poor  savages  would  surely  rise  from 
their  present  degradation  to  the  highest  top  of  the  civilized 
ladder.  And  he  naturally  finds  fault  with  "  the  late  Archbish- 
.X>p  Whately,"  who  had,  this  time,  been  sensible  enough  to  state 
in  a  lecture  on  the  Origin  of  Civilization,  the  well  known  and 
indisputable  fact,  that  "  all  experience  proves  that  men,  left  in 
the  lowest,  or  even  anything  approaching  to  the  lowest  degree 
of  barbarism  in  which  they  can  possibly  subsist  at  all,  never  did 
and  never  can  raise  themselves,  unaided,  into  a  high  condition." 

But  to  return  to  our  subject,  we  see  that  in  our  own  age,  the 
simultaneity  of  the  three  pretended  "  periods  "  exists  yet,  in 
spite  of  all  Europeans  have  done  to  spread  their  civilization  and 
habits  everywhere.  Two  hundred  years  ago,  the  phenomenon 
was  much  more  remarkable.  Earlier  still — at  the  time  of  the  dis- 
covery of  America — the  Spaniards  and  French  found  in  the  new 
continent  the  contemporaneous  existence  of  these  periods.  The 
French  in  the  North  were  confronted  by  the  "  stone  age  "  in  all  its 
glory  in  the  country  of  the  Ilurons  and  Iroquois ;  the  Spaniards 
met  with  the  bronze  age  in  full  sway,  in  Mexico  and  Peru. 

A  retrospective  glance  through  all  previous  history  would 
ascertain  the  same  fact  under  the  Romans,  the  Macedonians, 
the  Persians,  Assyrians,  and  even  Chaldseans,  of  the  most  prim- 
itive times.  .At  all  the  epochs  known  to  us  by  history  or 
tradition,  a  number  of  nations  of  antiquity  have  worked  aU  the 
metals  really  useful  to  man.  It  is  perfectly  well  ascertained, 
that  the  methods  of  the  early  Phoanicians  for  mining  were 
exactly  what  our  methods  are  yet  now.  Job,  we  believe,  has 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF   PRIMITIVE   MAIS'.  67 

described  the  process  in  one  of  his  chapters.  And  another 
previous  chapter  of  the  Bible  —  a  book  at  least  worthy  of 
respect  —  tells  us  that  Tubal  Cain,  before  the  Deluge,  if  you 
please,  used  extensively  iron  for  many  purposes,  as  we  do 
to-day.  Hence  they  say  that  he  is  old  Yulcan  himself  —  a  god 
certainly  dealing  in  iron  long  before  the  celebrated  bronze  age 
of  Egypt  or  Greece. 

At  the  very  time  this  was  taking  place  in  the  Old  World, 
many  other  nations,  then  existing,  used  only  stone,  bones,  or 
wood.  The  question  is  merely,  who  were  the  real  "  primitive 
men,"  the  first  or  the  second  ? — those  namely  using  iron,  or 
those  using  stone  and  wood?  Sir  John  Lubbock  says,  the 
second ;  and  we  may  affirm  the  contrary.  And  this  will  be  the 
place  to  interpose  a  few  observations  on  civilization  as  distinct 
from  barbarism.  The  speculators  on  the  "  stone,  bronze,  and 
iron  ages"  place  civilization  almost  exclusively  in  the  en- 
joyment by  man  of  a  multitude  of  little  inventions  of  his 
own,  many  of  which  certainly  are  derived  from  the  knowledge 
and  use  of  metals.  Any  nation  deprived  of  them  cannot 
be  called  civilized,  in  their  opinion,  because  reduced  to  a  very 
simple  state  of  life,  which  they  say  unhesitatingly  is  barbarism ; 
and  the  stone  age  appearing  everwhere  at  the  cradle  of  nations, 
mankind  began  by  savagery.  We  cannot  admit  this  statement 
of  the  question.  And  one  proof  that  we  are  free  to  do  so, 
is  the  striking  fact,  admitted  by  all,  that  the  whole  of  Africa, 
including  the  most  central  part  unknown  till  our  days,  is  at 
this  time,  and  has  been  from  time  immemorial,  in  possession  of 
iron  and  steel. ,  Livingstone  found  it  to  be  the  case,  not  only 
in  the  south  of  the  continent  and  along  the  Zambezi,  but  all 
over  the  extensive  country  of  the  great  lakes,  whence  probably 
the  Nile  derives  its  source.  Strange  indeed !  The  most  invete- 
rately  barbarous  portion  of  our  globe  —  wretched,  degraded, 
almost  uncimlizdble  Africa,  if  we  are  allowed  to  coin  a  word  — 
has  enjoyed  the  greatest  means  of  civilization,  according  to 


68  GEOTILISM. 

modern  thinkers,  namely,  the  use  of  the  most  intractable  but 
necessary  metal,  iron,  so  long  that  in  order  to  find  the  epoch 
when  the  great  triangle  of  the  sons  of  Misr  or  Cush  was  buried 
in  the  barbarism  of  the  "  stone  age,"  we^have  to  go  far  beyond 
the  dynasties  of  Manetho ;  and  our  modern  collections  of  stone 
hatchets  and  flint  arrows  from  Africa  will  have  to  come  from 
the  head  waters  of  the  Senegambia,  or  contain  only  the  stone 
utensils  of  the  ancient  priesthood,  obliged  by  their  strict  ritual 
to  avoid  the  use  of  iron  in  their  sacrifices.  Egypt,  however, 
has  furnished  a  number  of  them  lately,  to  which  subject  we 
shall  return. 

We  submit  that  this  fact  alone  concerning  Africa  must  pre- 
vent the  necessary  identification  of  a  really  civilized  state 
with  the  use  of  metals,  and  consequently  the  forced  connection 
of  what  is  called  the  "stone  period"  with  the  savage  social 
state.  Barbarism,  in  fact,  depends  much  more  on  moral  degra- 
dation than  on  physical  want  of  comfort.  And  when  we  come 
to  describe  patriarchal  society,  our  readers  will  understand  how 
a  tribe  or  nation  may  deserve  to  be  placed  on  an  exalted  round 
of  the  social  ladder,  although  living  exclusively  on  the  fruits 
of  the  earth  and  cultivating  it  with  a  simple  wooden  plough. 
The  Brahmin  of  the  Rig  Yeda  epoch,  living  under  his  thatched 
roof  on  the  cool  borders  of  a  grove  of  palms,  by  the  banks  of  a 
limpid  stream  of  pure  water,  using  only  stone  to  break  his  nuts 
or  grind  his  roots,  and  covering  his  body  with  the  cotton  he  had 
himself  planted  and  spun ;  nourishing  his  soul  at  the  same  time 
with  the  reading  of  sublime  "  upanishads,"  and  reciting  his 
"  gayatry "  to  the  Supreme  God  at  the  beginning  of  his  chief 
actions,  was  more  truly  civilized  than  the  voluptuous  Baby- 
lonian of  the  same  period,  enjoying  all  the  advantages  of  a 
refined  "  iron  age,"  all  the  means  of  luxury  furnished  by  the 
progress  of  arts,  but  degraded  by  the  long-established  idolatry 
of  Hamitism,  which  from  Nimrod  had  come  to  him  through 
a  succession  of  downward  steps,  always  the  more  enticing  to 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN".  69 

the  senses  that  they  were  more  and  more  monstrous  and  un- 
natural. 

It  seems  to  our  modern  scientists  that  the  use  of  stone  is  in 
itself  contaminating  and  discreditable.  They  do  not  fail  to 
recor,d  the  fact  that  in  our  age  it  is  yet  used  even  by  some 
Europeans.  But  they  always  take  good  care  to  select  their 
examples  so  as  to  connect  the  use  of  it  with  a  kind  of  semi- 
barbarism.  Thus  they  state  with  due  emphasis  that  the  Irish, 
wherever  in  their  island  they  are  less  in  contact  with  the  blessed 
"  Sassanagh,"  brandish  yet  in  their  clumsy  work  stone  mallets  and 
basalt  hammers ;  and  that  some  of  their  Gallic  neighbors,  chiefly 
the  fruit- venders  and  nut-peddlers  of  western  France,  break 
yet  the  shells  between  two  stones,  exactly  as  the  roughest  Poly- 
nesians do  in  their  island  homes  of  the  Pacific  Ocean.  They 
are  perfectly  right  in  these  remarks ;  and  we  remember  that, 
whilst  yet  a  boy,  we  have  often  bought  nuts  from  good  women 
who  were  at  the  very  time  breaking  them  just  as  described. 
But  since  the  "  prehistorians  "  are  so  fond  of  small  details  — • 
their  books  literally  teem  with  them  —  we  would  like  to  ask 
them  what  is  the  difference  of  the  two  methods  with  respect  to 
"  barbarism  "  or  "  civilization  P  If  a  simple  stone  hammer  can 
turn  out  as  good  a  horse-shoe  as  a  steel  one ;  and  if  a  walnut  or 
hazlenut  can  as  deftly  be  opened  and  present  as  temptingly 
the  fruit  inside,  by  using  a  couple  of  clean  white  pebbles,  as  by 
handling  a  many-toothed  steel  cracker,  why  does  the  use  of  one 
argue  a  higher  civilization  than  the  use  of  the  other  ? 

We  have  to  ask  the  pardon  of  our  readers  for  detaining  them 
with  such  trifles.  But  it  is  literally  the  fact  that  Sir  John 
Lubbock,  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor,  and  all  writers  of  the  same  class, 
believe  conscientiously  that  they  are  founding  a  new  science  by 
accumulating  and  heaping  together  almost  at  random,  from 
every  book  of  travel  and  every  possible  excavation  made  any- 
where on  our  globe,  trifling  facts,  oftentimes  of  no  bearing 
whatever  on  the  question ;  on  which,  however,  they  speculate 


70  GENTILISM. 

in  their  own  way,  forgetting,  as  it  would  seem,  that  others  may 
draw  from  the  same  facts  absolute  contrary  conclusions  to  theirs, 
when  everyone  could  do  so  differently,  and  deluding  themselves 
all  the  while  with  the  imagination,  which  they  often  assert  in 
so  many  words,  with  no  little  positiveness,  that  they  have  found 
the  true  solution  of  hitherto  intricate  problems  of  the  greatest 
importance  to  mankind ;  as  if  it  were  their  object  to  assign  to 
the  human  being  a  position  of  the  utmost  possible  degradation. 

But  is  it  not  true  that  every  tribe  or  nation  began  every- 
where by  the  roughest  stone  period  —  what  is  called  the 
Pakeolithic  age  —  using  unpolished  stone  tools,  whose  very 
make  denote  real  barbarism  ?  Is  it  not  a  fact  attested  by  many- 
discoveries  in  Western  Europe  ?  Did  not  man  at  the  time  drag 
on  a  troublous  existence  in  companionship  with  ferocious  beasts, 
in  the  midst  of  a  frozen  ocean,  like  our  actual  Arctic  region  ? 
We  answer,  that  this  is  asserted  by  many,  and  admitted  by  such 
men  as  Messrs.  Lenormant  and  Chevalier,  in  their  excellent 
"  Manual  of  Ancient  History  of  the  East."  We  reply,  that  if 
it  is  proved,  it  is  only  for  Western  Europe,  where  man  did  not 
originate,  and  no  general  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  it. 

Bewildered  as  we  are  by  the  accumulation  of  innumerable 
facts,  mostly  insignificant,  or  proving  often  only  what  every- 
body knows ;  and  wishing  in  truth  to  treat  the  matter  rationally, 
so  as  to  come  to  some  practical  and  tangible  conclusion,  we 
have  only  to  propose  to  ourselves  two  queries : 

First.  What  kind  of  researches  have  been  made  in  Western 
Europe,  and  what  do  they  say  pointedly  ? 

Second.  Has  the  remainder  of  the  globe  been  interrogated 
on  the  same  topic,  and  to  what  effect  ? 

I.  Into  our  present  inquiry  the  ages  of  bronze  and  of  iron 
do  not'  enter,  since  all  admit  they  coincide  with  historic  times ; 
and  we  shall  have  sufficient  proofs  on  our  side  when  we  come  to 
interrogate  antiquity.  The  "  stone  period  "  even  does  not  offer 
any  great  difficulty,  except  for  the  first  stage  of  it  —  what  is 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  Vl 

• 

called  the  palaeolithic  age ;  as  the  neolithic,  or  the  period  of 
"  polished  stone,"  shows  already  a  high  degree  of  artistic 
development,  and  is  generally  admitted  to  coincide  in  point  of 
time  with  the  first  spread  of  the  Aryan  races  toward  the  West 
and  Xorth  —  an  epoch  very  far  from  the  pretended  reign  of 
barbarism.  But  the  palaaolithic  discoveries  have  apparently 
thrown  back  the  existence  of  man  to  an  almost  incalculable 
distance,  owing  to  the  manner  in  which  they  have  been  inter- 
preted ;  and  the  man  they  suppose  must  certainly  have  been  a 
barbarian.  The  question  for  us  will  be,  "Was  he  the  primitive 
man  ?  At  the  time  he  existed,  was  there  no  other  type  of  the 
human  race  on  the  globe  ?  And  must  we  begin  the  history  of 
our  species  by  the  monster  placed  under  our  eyes  by  Sir  John 
Lubbock  in  England,  and  M.  De  Mortillet  in  France  ? 

To  treat  the  subject  with  lucidity,  we  will  state  first  the  facts, 
and  then  some  of  the  speculations  of  these  gentlemen.  Our 
own  we  will  not  offer ;  but  we  will  afterwards  adduce  those  of 
other  competent  writers  on  the  subject,  and  conclude  how  far 
barbarism  has  existed  in  former  ages,  as  it  certainly  exists  at 
present. 

(a).  On  both  banks  of  nearly  all  the  rivers  of  Western 
Europe,  often  at  a  distance  from  the  shores,  are  seen  ranges  of 
hills  running  parallel  with  the  streams.  If  these  topographical 
elevations  are  looked  into  closely,  deposits  of  coarse  gravel 
below,  and  sand  above,  generally  are  found,  varying  in  depth, 
but  descending  mostly  to  a  depth  of  from  ten  to  twenty  feet. 
These  strata  are  always  —  sometimes  as  high  as  a  hundred 
feet,  often  less  —  above  the  actual  bed  of  the  river.  Over  the 
whole  a  coating  of  argillaceous  clay  is  spread.  In  many  local- 
ities in  England,  France,  and  other  European  countries,  two 
kinds  of  heterogeneous  substances  are  found  imbedded  in  the 
gravel,  the  sand,  or  even  the  clay.  First,  pieces  of  flint  —  never 
anything  else  —  worked,  or  rather  clipped,  nnartistically  in  the 
rough  shape  of  pointed  cones,  rounded  clubs,  or  flattened  spears, 


72  GENTILISM. 

• 

arrows,  awls,  etc.,  never  to  be  inserted  in  handles  of  any  kind ; 
and,  secondly,  often  together  with  these  the  undoubted  remains 
of  huge  animals,  some  of  them  of  extinct  species,  others  of  ac- 
tually existing  kinds,  but  living  in  countries  farther  north  or 
south,  together  with  extinct  species  of  plants. 

These  deposits  are  generally  met  with  on  ~bofh  sides  of  the 
rivers,  mostly  at  a  distance  from  them  y  and  it  looks  really  as 
if  the  whole  intermediate  distance  across  in  the  entire  length 
of  the  stream  had  been  originally  filled  with  the  same  deposits, 
which  must  have  been  swept  away  to  the  sea,  or  into  caves 
often  discovered  in  the  neighborhood  choke  full  of  the  same 
objects.  When  this  occurs  near  the  mouth  of  rivers,  the  great 
distance  between  both  ranges  of  hills,  the  depth  looked  down 
into  from  the  tops  of  surrounding  heights,  strikes  the  beholder 
with  awe,  when  he  knows  that  such  an  enormous  quantity  of 
material  has  been  swept  away  by  the  current  and  buried  at  the 
bottom  of 'the  ocean.  It  is  useless  to  add  that  the  insignificant 
bed  of  the  actual  stream  adds  to  the  effect  produced  on  the 
imagination  by  the  conception  of  the  past.  These  few  words, 
we  think,  have  placed  the  difficulty  before  us  in  all  its  strength. 
We  are  now  in  possession  of  the  leading  facts.  Our  limits  do 
not  admit  of  going  into  any  minuter  detail. 

(J).  It  is  easy  to  suppose  how  such  discoveries,  after  they  had 
been  well  ascertained,  gave  rise  immediately  to  numerous 
speculations,  some  of  the  wildest  kind,  all  more  or  less  unjus- 
tified by  the  actual  facts.  When  men  propose  themselves  an 
a  priori  object  the  remotest  pretext  becomes  directly  a  most 
powerful  argument. 

First,  a  name  was  to  be  found  to  convey  to  the  student  some 
adequate  idea  of  the  immense  importance  of  the  treasures 
concealed  in  the  newly-found  deposits.  Formerly,  being  well 
known  exteriorly,  they  made  in  books  of  geology  a  part  of  what 
was  called  the  Drift.  And  this  name  was  perfectly  appropriate, 
as  the  reader  must  not  suppose  that  the  whole  globe,  or  a  great 


SUPPOSED    BAEDARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  73 

part  of  it,  is  covered  with  this  now  celebrated  coating  of  clay 
above  an  underlying  of  sand  and  gravel.  It  is  found,  as  we  have 
stated,  only  along  water-courses.  It  is,  therefore,  a  phenome- 
non of  drift  and  nothing  else.  It  came  evidently  from  power- 
ful floods,  of  the  violence  of  which  we  can  have  now  scarcely 
any  conception.  But  the  name  only  half -pleased  the  discover- 
ers, and  they  preferred  to  call  it  the  Quaternary  deposit.  As 
the  well-known  Primary,  Secondary,  and  Tertiary  Strata  are 
absolutely,  or  at  least  nearly,  co-extensive  with  the  earth  itself, 
the  student  was  led  to  believe  that  the.  new  Quaternary  shared 
in  the  same  ubiquity.  Thus  a  new  geological  epoch  was  in- 
vented. And  as  remains  of  human  industry  have  been  certainly 
exhumed  from  the  lowest  strata  of  the  new  deposits — the  pre- 
tended discovery  of  them  in  the  Tertiary  itself  by  Mr.  1'Abbe 
Bourgeois  and  others,  has  been  rejected,  and  ridiculed  even — 
it  was  evident,  they  argued,  that  not  only  has  man  existed 
through  the  present  alluvial  formations,  but  that  in  a  previous 
long  geological  epoch,  a  barbarian  industry  had  been  at  work, 
which  could  not  have  been  but  the  first  attempt  at  intelligent 
labor  by  primitive-barbarian  man.  Thus  a  great  deal  was 
gained  by  the  cause  of  barbarism. 

Secondly,  in  studying  the  fauna  and  flora  of  this  Quaternary 
epoch,  another  step  was  made,  but  not  fairly,  perhaps,  in  the 
same  direction.  The  remains  of  immense  mammalia :  elephants 
(the  mammoth),  bears,  tigers,  etc.,  the  congeners  of  which  in 
our  days  look  like  young  cubs  compared  to  those  prototypes, 
astonished  the  beholder,  and  gave  a  stronger  idea  of  the  weak- 
ness, inferiority,  and  rough  life  of  primitive-barbarian  man. 
We  certainly  do  not  deny  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  those 
huge  beasts,  since  their  bones  exist,  and  are  now  preserved.  It 
has  been  long  known  that  the  mouths  of  rivers  in  Siberia  are 
full  of  their  gigantic  carcases.  But  simple  reason  tells  us  that 
if  the  life  of  our  first  ancestors  had  been  such  as  they  describe, 
mankind  would  have  disappeared  long  before  the  extinction  of 


74  GEJf  TILISM. 

such  fearful  enemies  as  ursus  spelceus,  fell's  leo  spelaxi,  rhinoce- 
ros tichorinus,  and  elephas  primigenius.  The  upholders  of  the 
supposition  have  evidently  gone  too  far  and  defeated  them- 
selves ;  and  there  must  be  some  other  way  of  solving  the  prob- 
lem. We  will  not  certainly  pretend  that  because  no  human 
fossil  remains  have  been  undoubtedly  found  in  the  Quater- 
nary,* man  did  not  exist,  since  the  flint  implements  must  be 
the  work  of  intelligent  beings.  But  we  maintain  that  these 
coarse  tools  do  not  give  the  measure  of  his  intellect  at  the 
time,  and  that  many  things  have  been  lost  which  might  have 
given  us  a  different  idea  of  man  as  he  was.  He  must  have 
been  certainly  superior  in  intelligence  to  all  those  monsters, 
since  being  so  much  weaker  in  body  than  they  were,  he  con- 
quered them,  and  subsisted  when  they  perished.  He  must 
have  had  other  weapons  than  any  which  have  been  yet  un- 
earthed to  oppose  successfully  such  huge  and  ferocious  ene- 
mies ;  and  the  Bible  alone,  perhaps,  has  solved  the  problem  in 
telling  us  that  "  there  were  giants  in  those  days" — a  text  which 
we  will  not  undertake  to  explain,  since  we  have  not  yet  met 
with  the  offensive  and  defensive  arms  which  enabled  man  in 
those  early  ages  to  maintain  his  superiority  throughout  a  period 
of  such  gigantic  animal  life.  No  one  has  a  right  to  say  dog- 
matically what  was  his  social  and  domestic  life.  We  do  not 
know  enough  at  present  to  venture  even  a  hypothesis.  Shall 
we  ever  be  able  to  do  so  ?  Perhaps  we  shall  know  more  when 
the  same  researches  have  been  extended  to  Asia  and  Africa. 

Thirdly,  the  artistic  distance  between  the  rough  palaeolithic 
flints  and  the  polished  stones  of  the  neolithic  period  exhibits  a 
gap,  which  tells  but  indifferently  in  favor  of  the  believers  in 
continuous  progress.  Either  there  has  been  a  strange  severment 
of  continuity,  or  the  men  of  the  first  period  were  better  artists, 
and  not  such  rough  barbarians  as  the  remains  we  possess  of 

*  Tliis  is  the  assertion  of  English  writers :  the  French  speak  quite  dif- 
ferently. 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAIT.  5 

them  seem  to  attest.  To  explain  the  existence  of  this  gap, 
which  they  acknowledge,  the  supporters  of  primitive  barharism 
express  the  hope  that  the  time  may  come  when  the  intervening 
links  will  be  discovered.  It  may  then  appear  that  originally 
men  were  not  satisfied  with  the  rude  unpolished  flint  •  imple- 
ments, which  alone  are  now  found.  The  only  conclusion  which 
can  be  drawn  is,  that  we  know  very  little  yet  of  those  ancient 
times ;  and  that  the  speculations  indulged  in  our  days  will  be 
found  probably  as  wide  of  the  mark  as  the  hasty  inferences 
of  the  first  geologists,  whose  imaginations  are  now  repu- 
diated. 

But  should  everything  be  admitted  that  Sir  John  Lubbock 
himself  asserts,  it  would  not  be  a  solution  of  the  problem  in 
his  favor.  Because,  since  all  acknowledge  that  barbarians  exist, 
and  have  existed  at  all  times,  the  question  is  merely,  "  Did 
barbarism  embrace  the  whole  of  mankind  at  first?"  So  far 
our  researches  have  been  limited  almost  exclusively  to  Western 
Europe.  We  have  not  yet  said  a  word  of  the  two  other  con- 
tinents, of  which  we  shall  shortly  have  to  speak.  Man  did  not 
originate  in  Europe.  He  came  from  the  East,  and  his  migra- 
tions, now  well  ascertained,  will  tell  a  very  different  tale. 
Even  in  the  stone  period  of  the  most  remote  age,  he  was 
not  without  congeners  in  other  parts  of  the  globe.  We  pro- 
pose, in  this  chapter,  to  take  into  consideration  some  of  the 
human  races,  which,  as  the  best  ethnographers  admit,  went 
forth  from  the  original  seat  of  mankind,  to  spread  themselves 
in  successive  streams  of  slow,  but  continuous  migrations,  in 
the  most  remote  corners  of  the  earth.  Then,  indeed,  we 
shall  be  able  to  compare  race  with  race,  and  to  examine  if  all 
were  barbarous  at  the  origin.  Meanwhile  we  reaffirm  that  the 
totally  degraded  state  of  man  as  supposed  by  the  supporters  of 
the  new  theories  is  not  proved.  And  this  suffices  for  us  at 
present.  The  neolithic  epoch,  which  must  have  been  connected 
with  the  previous  one,  is  certainly  admitted  to  have  been  far 


76  GENTILISM. 

from  barbarous,  and  on  this  account  we  do  not  speak  of  it  cos 
professo. 

"  We  have,"  as  Mr.  Evans  himself  says  of  it,  page  423, "  hatch 
ets,  adzes,  chisels,  borers,  scrapers,  and  tools  of  various  kinds, 
and  know  both  how  they  were  made  and  how  they  were  used. 
We  have  battle-axes,  lances,  and  arrows,  for  war  or  for  the  chase. 
We  have  various  implements  and  utensils  adapted  for  domestic 
use.  We  have  the  personal  ornaments  of  our  remote  prede- 
cessors, and  know  something  of  their  methods  of  sepulture,  and 
of  their  funeral  customs,"  etc.  We  may  add  to  this  enumera- 
tion, that  all  this  is  often  artistically  manufactured ;  and  we  have 
also  spirited  sketches  in  intaglio,  in  which  the  animals  then 
existing,  including  the  mammoth  with  his  mane,  are  represented 
with  astonishing  precision.  Moreover,  this  (and  it  is  a  fact  on 
which  we  lay  especial  stress)  must  have  belonged  to  the  palaeo- 
lithic age,  not  to  the  neolithic,  since  those  animals  had  disap- 
peared in  the  latter  times.  We  have  therefore  to  smooth  down 
considerably  the  rough  picture  offered  us  of  "  homo  primi- 
tivus."  The  number  of  those  beautiful  artistic'  sketches  found, 
in  the  oldest  deposits,  increases  every  day,  and  of  themselves 
alone  would  prove  that  man  was  not  then  a  barbarian. 

But,  lastly,  a  consideration  which  is  of  extreme  importance  in 
our  present  investigations,  and  which,  consequently,  we  pro- 
pose to  treat  somewhat  more  at  length,  is  as  follows : 

Nearly  all  the  writers  on  the  subject,  including  several  sin- 
cere Christains,  seem  to  admit,  that  in  the  quaternary  geologi- 
2al  epoch,  the  deposits  of  sand,  gravel,  and  clay  followed  nearly 
the  almost  peaceful  course  which  we  witness  ourselves  on  the 
banks  of  the  Mississippi  River,  and  which  are  present  under  the 
eyes  of  South  Americans,  along  the  Amazon.  Consequently, 
to  calculate  the  time  required  for  the  scooping  out  of  the  im- 
mense valleys  then  in  process  of  formation,  is  merely  an  affair 
of  common  arithmetic.  It  is  true,  the  results  of  the  mathemati- 
cal operation  vary  in  a  most  wonderful  manner.  Sir  Charles 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE    MAN.  77 

Lyell,  according  to  Mr.  John  Evans  (page  619),  requires  no  less 
than  800,000  years  for  the  whole  process  from  the  glacial 
period,  during  which  time  man — but  barbarous  man — is  sup- 
posed to  have  always  existed.  Sir  John  Lubbock  undertakes 
the  same  calculation,  and  finds  that  200,000  years  have  sufficed. 
Finally,  the  Christian  writers  of  whom  we  spoke,  think  that  a 
minimum  of  10,000  will  sufficiently  account  for  the  general 
facts ;  and  to  that  extent  must  the  chronolgy  of  the  Bible  be 
extended.  Such  a  disaccord  ought  evidently  to  demand  a  denial 
of  the  whole  by  sensible  men. 

It  is  true,  that  independently  of  our  sacred  records,  reason  alone, 
and  geology,  to  a  great  extent,  proves  that  man  could  not,  and 
did  not  appear  on  our  globe  before  it  was  settled  definitely,  and 
was  fit  to  become  his  dwelling.  And,  in  fact,  the  remains  of 
man — of  his  body,  I  mean — can  bs  found  only  in  the  scrapings 
of  its  uppermost  surface  ;  namely,  in  the  drift — the  real  drif t — 
not  the  quaternary  strata  understood  in  the  modern  sense. 
Since  the  epoch  of  the  real  drift,  naturalists  of  the  true 
stamp,  endowed  with  a  deep  spirit  of  observation,  can  calculate 
with^sufficient  accuracy,  the  time  required  for  the  various  oper- 
ations going  on  yet  under  our  eyes ;  such  as  the  forming  of 
deltas  at  the  mouth  of  rivers,  the  spreading  of  sand  on  the  out- 
skirts of  deserts,  etc.,  etc.  Yet,  we  may  say  it  incidently, 
Baron  Cuvier  having  undertaken  to  show  in  his  "  Discours  sur 
les  Revolutions  du  Globe  "  that  our  continents  in  their  present 
shape  could  not  go  farther  up  in  time  than  the  epoch  generally 
assigned  for  the  Noachian  deluge,  after  he  had  brought  to  the 
study  of  the  question  all  the  resources  of  his  exact  and  power- 
ful mind,  all  his  extensive  knowledge,  all  the  means  furnished 
him  by  the  libraries  and  collections  of  Paris,  having,  in  fact,  ap- 
parently given  an  opinion  which  could  be  called  final ;  what  was 
our  surprise  to  hear,  lately,  from  the  lips  of  an  eminent  geolo- 
gist of  this  country,  that  all  this  discussion  of  Baron  Cuvier 
must  r  ow  be  considered  of  no  value  !  We  ask  our  candid  read- 


78  GENTILISM. 

ers,  what  will  be  thought  In  fifty  years  to  come  of  all  the  calcu- 
lations of  actual  geologists  and  palaeontologists  ? 

But  to  return  to  our  subject.  What  is  positively  asserted  by 
eminent  naturalists  of  this  important  quaternary  epoch  ?  Was 
it  a  peaceful  period  of  ordinary  development,  following  clear 
and  steady  rules  ?  Is  it  easy,  or,  rather,  is  it  possible,  in  the  ac- 
tual state  of  our  knowledge  on  the  subject,  to  calculate  the  num- 
ber of  years  required  for  its  formation  ?  Are  we  consequently 
able  to  conclude  from  the  incredible  length  of  time  it  supposes, 
that  man,  at  first  nearly  a  brute,  slowly  developed  with  the 
globe  on  which  he  trod  ?  For  this  is  the  real  object  all  those 
modern  writers  propose  to  themselves  in  their  investigations. 

On  the  contrary,  our  knowledge  of  this  newly-invented  geo- 
logical period  tends  to  prove  that  either  on  account  of  the  most 
strange  climate  which  can  be  imagined,  or  of  the  extreme  vio- 
lence of  water-courses  which  must  have  amounted  to  numerous 
and  extensive  floods,  or  finally  of  the  almost  complete  absence 
of  regular  and  orderly  stratification,  puzzling  indeed  to  geolo- 
gists, the  celebrated  quaternary  epoch  must  have  been  one  of 
severe  and  constant  disturbances,  scarcely  allowing  man  to  ex- 
ist, and  certainly  placing  an  insurmountable  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  calculators,  when  it  is  a  question  of  determining  the 
length  of  the  period ;  so  that  the  800,000  years  of  Sir  Chas. 
Lyell,  the  200,000  of  Sir  John  Lubbock,  nay,  the  insignificant 
10,000  of  Christian  palaeontologists,  are  only  unreliable  guesses 
which  can  as  well  be  passed  over  without  a  word  of  discussion. 

The  climate,  it  seems,  was  such  at  that  geological  epoch,  that 
neither  before  nor  after,  has  anything  ever  been  experienced 
to  equal  its  irregularity.  The  whole  series  of  other  strata 
offers  nothing  of  the  kind ;  everywhere  there  is  order  except 
in  the  quaternary.  Yast  moraines  testify  to  the  existence  of 
stupendous  glaciers,  one  of  them  spreading^  itself  from  the 
source  of  the  Rhone,  east  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva,  nearly  to 
Lyons  in  the  west ;  the  whole  of  Europe,  in  very  truth,  north 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF   PRIMITIVE   MA.N.  79 

of  the  Pyrenees  was  covered  with  them.  Consequently  the 
reindeer  throve  everywhere  over  that  vast  area.  Many  valleys, 
however,  must  have  been  exposed  to  a  high  summer  heat,  to 
admit  of  their  being  a  home  for  the  elephant.  The  hippopota- 
mus of  Africa,  only  much  larger,  found  a  congenial  climate  as 
far  north  as  Belgium.  Many  conjectures  have  been  ventured 
to  explain  such  anomalies  as  these.  Not  one  of  them,  however, 
is  satisfactory.  To  obviate  this  difficulty,  geologists  assure  us 
that  "  the  glacial  disturbance  did  not  last  long."  How  do  they 
know  that  ?  Is  not  the  fact  that  remains  of  the  reindeer  are 
found  throughout  the  period,  and  that  it  was  the  only  large 
animal  which  did  not  perish,  but  retired  to  the  north,  where  it 
thrives  yet — a  sufficient  refutation  of  the  assertion  that  "  the 
glacial  period  did  not  last  long  ? " 

But  it  is  well  known  that  extremes  of  this  kind  must  power- 
fully influence  the  meteorological  phenomena ;  and  nothing  is 
more  effective  for  disturbing  the  surface  of  the  globe,  and  for 
producing  most  fearful  storms.  We  might,  therefore,  already 
conclude  that  the  quaternary  period  was,  during  its  whole  ex- 
tent, a  violent  one,  whose  effects  can  scarcely  be  calculated,  and 
to  pretend  to  measure  it  at  this  time  is  a  dream. 

All  palaeontologists  tell  us  that,  during  this  epoch,  the  at- 
mospheric moisture  must  have  been  extreme,  and  the  fall  of 
rain  nearly  incessant.  Which  fact,  joined  with  the  rapid  melt- 
ing of  the  glaciers,  must  have  caused  a  literal  deluge,  lasting 
through  the  whole  time  of  the  period.  If  this  be  so,  (and  we 
wait  for  it  to  be  controverted,)  there  is  then  no  need  of  calling 
to  one's  aid  the  true  Noachian  flood,  as  Mr.  1'Abbe  Lambert 
has  done  in  his  interesting  work,  "  Le  Deluge  Mosaique,  1'His- 
toire  et  la  Geologic,"  to  explain  the  same  facts.  Perhaps  the 
palaeontologists  go  too  far  on  this  subject.  Yet  much  of  what 
they  affirm  is  proved  by  the  short  description  we  have  given  of 
the  enormous  water-courses  which  existed  at  the  time.  Our 

surprise  is,  indeed,  great,  that*  Sir  Charles  Lvell  was  not  dis- 

7 


80  GE^TILISM. 

turbed  in  his  calculations-  by  such  an  obvious  objection  as  this, 
and  that  he  felt  himself  at  liberty  to  speak  so  dogmatically 
on  a  subject  so  obscure. 

It  is  certain  that  in  the  whole  field  of  geology  nothing  is  so 
problematical  as  every  thing  connected  with  what  is  called  the 
quaternary  deposits ;  yet  it  is  on  this  subject  men  now  speak 
most  peremptorily. 

Finally,  to  confirm  all  these  views,  we  are  supplied  with 
another  striking  characteristic  of  the  quaternary  period : 
namely,  that  the  "  statigraphic  classification  of  the  deposits 
of  this  geological  epoch  is  yet  very  obscure  and  uncertain." 
Which  means,  we  presume,  that  the  stratification  of  the  vari- 
ous deposits  is  irregular  and  without  order,  so  that  palaeontol- 
ogists are  at  a  loss  to  know  how  to  begin  or  to  end  the  epoch, 
and  the  way  things  used  to  go  on  during  the  whole  of  it  —  to 
us  a  homely  but  very  appropriate  phrase.  This,  of  course,  all 
students  of  geology  well  know,  supposes  an  habitual  state  of 
disturbance  during  the  whole  period,  constantly  displacing  the 
strata,  and  rendering  any  system  on  the  subject  impossible. 

It  is  true  that  Mr.  Ed.  Dupont,  after  a  deep  study  of  the  caves 
near  Dinan,  in  Brittany,  "  has  been  able  to  reconstruct  all  the 
phases  of  the  primitive  industry  of  man,  as  it  existed  at  the 
time  in  the  country  we  now  call  Belgium ! "  and  Mr.  Gabriel 
de  Mortillet  "  has  proposed  a  classification  of  the  whole  period, 
which  has  been  adopted  in  the  Paris  Museum  of  -National 
Antiquities."  But  this  last  gentleman  has  been  obliged  to 
designate  his  subdivisions  of  the  period  merely  by  the  names 
of  the  places  where  he  supposes  the  remains  of  each  are  mainly 
found,  thus :  epoque  du  MoustieH — the  most  ancient ;  .epoque  de 
Solutre — next  in  order ;  epoque  cPAurignac — succeeding  the  pre 
vious  one ;  and  lastly,  V epoque  de  la  Madeleine.  But  it  is  obvi- 
ous that  it  is  merely  the  individual  view  of  Mr.  G.  de  Mortillet, 
and  not  a  natural  one,  based  on  precise  data,  as  seemed  to  be  the 
one  proposed  by  Mr.  Ed.  Lartet,  namely :  epoque  du  renne  / 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE    MAN.  81 

epoqiie  de  Pours  /  epogue  du  rnammouih^  which  at  first  satis 
tied  a  number  of  learned  men,  but  had  to  be  abandoned  as  not 
sustained  by  actual  facts,  owing  to  the  confusion  of  everything 
at  the  time  those  deposits  were  accumulated. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  is  well  expressed  by  Mr.  Adrien 
Arcelin,  in  "  Le  Correspondant,  Decembre,  1872  "  :  "  Some 
geologists  have  thought,  not  without  foundation,  that  the  ap- 
pellation— quaternary  epoch — ought  to  be  suppressed,  because 
not  representing  any  precise  idea.  It  is,  in  fact,  rather  a  transi- 
tion from  the  tertiary  period  to  the  actual  one,  than  an  "  epoch  " 
properly  so  called.  Our  own  conclusion  is  that  nothing  is  yet 
known  positively  of  the  length  of  the  period,  and  all  calcula- 
tions in  the  face  of  its  numerous  anomalies  are  altogether 
worthless."  Thus  the  barbarism  of  "  quaternary  man"  is  not 
yet  proved,  any  more  than  his  high  antiquity. 

But  we  cannot  dismiss  the  subject  without  calling  the  atten 
tion  of  the  reader  to  the  theory  of  Mr.  1'Abbe  Lambert,  men- 
tioned above.  We  have  not  seen  his  work,  but  we  learn  from 
Mr.  Arcelin  that  its  object  is  "  to  assimilate  the  diluvian  " — or 
as  we  prefer  to  express  it,  the  drift — "  phenomena  to  the  Biblical 
deluge."  The  idea  is,  in  fact,  striking  after  one  has  perused  suffi- 
ciently what  has  been  written  on  the  quaternary  or  drift  deposits. 

The  extreme  moisture  of  the  atmosphere,  not  only  during 
the  fall  of  the  pouring  rain,  but  all  through  the  subsidence  of 
the  waters,  and  perhaps  long  after  even,  must  have  been  nearly 
of  the  nature  described  above.  With  respect  to  the  strange- 
ness of  climate,  if  the  deluge  was  universal,  as  the  literal  text 
of  the  Bible,  and  the  traditions  of  it  spread  among  all  nations, 
except  the  blacks,  seem  to  intimate,  may  we  not  suppose  that 
the  immense  volume  of  the  then  universal  sea  detached  from 
the  neighborhood  of  both  poles,  not  glaciers,  perhaps,  but  at 
least  immense  and  innumerable  icebergs,  deposited  afterwards 
over  the  continents,  when  they  emerged  anew  from  the  ocean  ? 
What  would  be  the  climate  of  England  and  France  for  the  sub- 


82  GENTILISM. 

sequent  time  ?  Isot  very  different,  possibly,  from  what  wo 
described  above.  Then  the  incalculable  rush  of  the  waters, 
when  they  subsided,  might  account  for  the  "  scooping  out  "  of 
those  large  valleys,  which  fill  the  beholder  with  wonder  and 
astonishment,  and  which  excite  the  wild  speculations  of  ardent 
geologists.  In  this  case,  again,  we  cannot  be  surprised  at  the 
confusion  of  the  various  deposits,  which  bewilder  learned  men, 
and  defeat  all  attempts  at  classification.  The  presence  of 
human  remains — there  were  many,  at  least  in  France,  as  we 
shall  see  presently — together  with  the  uncouth  animals  of  the 
ante-diluvian  period,  both  mixed  together  as  they  are  often 
found,  can  be  best  explained  by  the  supposition  of  the  Mosaic 
deluge.  For,  as  Mr.  John  Evans  very  properly  observes,  men 
and  ferocious  beasts  could  not  live  together  in  the  same  caves. 
All  these  considerations,  and  many  others  which  might  be 
indulged  in,  will  for  ever  prevent  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Lambert 
from  being  considered  as  ill-founded,  when  compared  with  the 
theories  of  "  prehistorians." 

On  this  hypothesis — for  it  is  claimed  only  as  such — the  clip- 
ped and  unpolished  flint  instruments  found  everywhere  in  the 
drift,  wrould  have  been  used  by  the  ante-diluvian  people ;  but 
it  was  not,  by  a  great  way,  all  they  possessed  in  point  of  art.  It 
be  may  conjectured  that  innumerable  objects,  already  in  those 
far-off  ages,  invented  ]>y  man  for  his  convenience  and  pleasure, 
have  either  perished,  or  have  not  yet  been  found,  and  may  be 
later  discovered  in  the  drift  deposits  of  Asia,  where  man  really 
originated.  For  if  we  do  not  believe  in  indefinite  and  continu- 
ous progress,  any  more  than  in  the  barbarism  of  primitive 
man,  we  acknowledge  in  fact  that  the  only  thing  which  man  did 
not  invent  was  language.  Writing,  the  knowledge  and  use  of 
metals,  the  various  arts,  the  sciences,  etc.,  are  the  proud  con- 
quests of  the  King  of  creation.  But  if  he  had  to  go  through  a 
long  process  of  investigations  and  discoveries  after  his  fall,  he 
still  possessed  reason,  nourished  at  first  by  divine  revelation; 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF   PRIMITIVE    MAJf.  83 

and  nothing  can  give  more  elevation  and  activity  to  the  human 
mind,  besides  its  native  energy,  than  the  word  of  God  commu- 
nicated first  to  the  race,  and  preserved  more  or  less  faithfully 
during  a  long  period  at  least  of  the  ante-diluvia'n  epoch.  His 
inventions,  therefore,  were  then  more  rapid  and  remarkable 
than  we  can  suppose  them  to  have  been  at  a  later  period. 

These  considerations,  worthy  of  the  respect  of  all  Christians, 
cannot  any  more  be  derided  by  merely  learned  men ;  because, 
in  our  age,  the  truth  of  the  ISToachian  deluge  gradually  gains 
ground,  and  begins  to  be  adopted  by  men  of  learning,  even 
when  unfortunately  deprived  of  the  belief  in  divine  revelation. 

The  following  quotations  from  Mr.  E.  B.  Tylor,  and  Mr. 
Maury,  deserve,  on  this  account,  to  find  a  place  in  our  pages : 

"  The  notion  of  men  having  existed  before  the  flood,  and 
having  been  all  destroyed  except  a  few  who  escaped  and  re- 
peopled  the  earth,  does  not  flow  so  immediately  from  the  obser- 
vation of  natural  phenomena  that  we  can  easily  suppose  it  to 
have  originated  several  times  independently  in  such  a  way ;  yet 
this  is  a  feature  common  to  the  great  mass  of  flood  traditions. 
Still  more  strongly  does  this  argument  apply  to  the  occurrence 
of  some  form  of  raft,  ark,  or  canoe  in  which  the  survivors  are 
generally  saved,  unless,  as  in  some  cases,  they  take  refuge 
directly  on  the  top  of  some  mountain  which  the  water  never 
covers.  The  idea  is,  indeed,  conceivable,  if  somewhat  far- 
fetched, that  from  the  sight  of  a  boat  found  high  on  a  moun- 
tain, there  might  grow  the  story  of  a  flood  which  carried  it 
there,  while  the  people  in  it  escaped  to  found  a  new  race.  But 
it  lies  outside  all  reasonable  probability  to  suppose  such  cir- 
cumstances to  have  produced  the  same  story  in  several  different 
places,  nor  is  it  very  likely  that  the  dim  remembrances  of  a 
number  of  local  floods  should  accord  in  this  with  the  amount 
of  consistency  that  is  found  among  the  flood  traditions  cf 
remote  regions  of  the  world.  The  occurrence  of  an  ark  in  the 
traditions  of  a  deluge,  found  in  so  many  distant  times  and 


84  GEirriLisM. 

places,  seems  to  entitle  them  to  be  received  as  derived  from  a 
single  source."     (E.  B.  Tylor,  "  Early  History  of  Mankind," 
'  page  324.) 

"  The  cause  -of  the  likeness  of  the  diluvian  traditions  of  the 
people  of  the  New  World  to  those  of  the  Bible,  remains  still 
an  unexplained  fact,"  says  Mr.  Maury,  who  nevertheless  tries 
in  the  same  book  to  destroy  the  authority  of  the  Mosaic  narra- 
tive of  the  deluge.  The  fact  once  admitted,  most  of  the  dis- 
coveries of  the  paloaolithic  age  can  be  explained.  We  will, 
however,  show  later  on  that  there  is  yet  a  better  explanation 
of  the  whole  misconception  of  unbelieving  scientists,  and 
that  not  only  the  actual  state  of  the  quaternary  deposits,  but 
chiefly  the  human  remains  they  contain,  prove  their  real  age, 
and  their  probable  origin  bring  them  absolutely  within  the 
limits  of  historic  times,  and  do  away  entirely  with  the  im- 
mense number  of  ages  supposed  to  be  required  by  enthusiastic 
prehistorians. 

II.  We  have,  thus  far,  briefly  examined  the  researches  made 
in  Western  Europe  in  the  Drift,  and  compared  the  conclusions 
drawn  from  them  by  many  "  prehistorians "  with  those  of  a 
very  competent  class  of  writers  on  the  same  subject.  We  must 
now  answer  the  question,  What  of  Asia  and  Africa  ? 

It  seems  that  a  large  number  of  specimens  of  stone  imple- 
ments have  already  been  received  in  England  from  Bombay. 
But  we  have  not  heard  that  the  circumstances  of  their  discovery 
agree  with  those  enumerated  above,  with  respect  to  the  Euro- 
pean Drift.  For  the  various  theories  on  the  quaternary  period, 
as  it  is  called,  do  not  rely  only,  nor  principally  even,  for 
their  support  on  the  stone  relics  of  the  palaeolitliic  age,  but 
chiefly  on  their  surroundings  in  situ;  on  the  remains  of 
extinct  mammalia,  which  often  accompany  them  ;  on  the  clear 
proofs  of  a  very  different  climate  at  the  time ;  on  their  siati- 
graphy,  as  geologists  express  it ;  and  on  several  other  circum- 
stances which  have  been  closely  investigated  in  Europe.  We 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEISM    OF    PRIMITIVE    MAN.  85 

have  not  heard  anything  of  the  kind  from  Bombay,  so  that  no 
conclusion  whatever  can  yet  be  deduced  from  Asiatic  discoveries. 

But  an  answer  has  come  from  Africa,  and  it  is,  in  its  sim- 
plicity, a  terrible  blow  given  to  the  fine-spun  theories  of  "  pre- 
historians."  Mr.  Mariette  has  already  been  heard  from  Egypt ; 
and  Mr.  F.  Chabas,  in  his  "  Etudes  sur  1'Antiquite  Historique, 
etc."  (2d  edit.  Paris,  1873),  has  summed  up  the  conclusions 
deduced  from  those  African  discoveries.  Mr.  Mariette  states 
positively  that  Egypt  and  the  adjacent  countries,  chiefly  in  the 
north,  are  literally  filled  with  stone  implements  of  the  (so- 
called)  palaeolithic  and  neolithic  ages ;  but  all  evidently  belong- 
ing to  the  true  historic  period,  to  all  centuries,  in  fact,  from 
the  first  Egyptian  dynasties  to  the  Ptolemies.  They  are  in- 
variably mixed  up  with  copper,  bronze,  and  even  sometimes 
iron  utensils.  Workmen  continued  to  use  them  indiscrim- 
inately, probably  because  silex  is  extremely  abundant  all  over 
Egypt,  and  they  are  as  useful  as  metallic  tools  for  many  opera- 
tions. They  served  in  the  mines  of  Mount  Sina — which  Mr. 
Mariette  went  to  explore  —  to  extract  from,  the  clay  the  tur- 
quoises which  are  abundant  there,  and  were  used  by  the 
Pharaohs  for  the  ornamentation  of  their  temples  and  palaces. 
They  served  around  Memphis  and  Thebes  for  cutting  stone, 
and  polishing  the  obelisks,  columns,  statues,  etc.  With  them 
are  often  found  fresh-water  shells,  on  the  fish  of  which  the 
workmen  fed,  as  well  as  many  objects  of  Egyptian  art  of  all 
periods,  etc.,  etc. 

These  few  remarks  evidently  nullify  all  the  prehistoric 
systems  invented  by  ardent  French  and  English  discoverers. 
But  combining  the  facts  of  Egypt  with  those  of  Europe, 
Mr.  Chabas  draws  conclusions  perfectly  in  accord  with  our 
own,  and  expressed  pithily  in  the  analytical  index  placed  at 
the  end  of  his  most  interesting  volume.  We  quote  his  own 
words,  on  account  of  the  rare  good  sense  they  exhibit,  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  idle  guessing  of  shallow  theorists  : 


86  GENTILISM. 

"  Les  silex  tallies  des  epoques  du  renne  et  de  1'elephant  (en 
France),  sont  aussi  remarquables  que  ceiix  dits  de  la  pierre 
polie."  (Consequently  neither  belong  to  a  barbarous  age.) 
"Des  outils  grossiers  et  des  instruments  bien  travailles  sont 
repandus dans toutes les stations"  (Consequently nv periodicity.} 
"  Superiorite  incontestable  du  travail  de  1'os  a  1'epoque  du 
mammouth  et  du  renne."  (Therefore  no  quaternary  period, 
so  called.)  "  Le  grand  deplacement  d'tau  qui  a  donne  le  relief 
actuel  du  bassin  de  la  Seine  a  ete  de  peu  de  duree."  (No  proof 
consequently  of  a  great  antiquity  for  objects  found  in  it.  It 
was  not  an  epoch.)  "  Incertitudes  sur  la  duree  et  sur  1'uni- 
versalite  des  phenomenes  glaciaires,"  etc.,  etc.  A  phraso  same- 
where  in  the  book  seems  to  indicate  that  the  author  would  not 
be  much  opposed  to  the  opinion  that  all  those  drift  phenomena 
are  the  effects  of  the  Noachian  deluge. 

Mr.  Chabas  is  a  man  of  science,  of  no  mean  attainments ; 
and,  if  we  do  not  mistake,  he  began  his  investigations  with  a 
real  bent  towards  the  new  theories  ;  but,  in  his  good  faith,  he 
soon  perceived  the  error,  and,  with  an  honest  simplicity,  he  de- 
clared openly  his  convictions. 

'  III. 

The  question  seems  now  to  be  in  a  fair  way  of  a  rational 
solution.  By  looking  at  it  under  a  new  aspect,  we  hope  to 
solve  it  in  a  way  which,  we  trust,  may  be  considered  to  be  not 
very  far  from  a  complete  demonstration. 

The  English  scientists  generally  assert  that  very  few  un- 
doubted remains  of  the  human  skeleton  have  been  discovered 
among  the  deposits  of  the  palaeolithic  age,  if,  indeed,  any  can 
be  said  to  have  been  found  really  belonging  to  it.  The  French, 
on  the  contrary,  have  had  the  good  luck  to  fall  on  real  treas- 
ures of  this  kind,  to  which  a  slight  allusion  has  already  been 
made  by  us. 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE    MAtf.  87 

In  the  classification  of  the  various  stages  of  the  quaternary 
period  suggested  by  Mr.  de  Mortillet,  and  adopted  in  the  Paris 
Museum  of  National  Antiquities,  the  first  and  oldest  epoch, 
\ve  said,  was  that  of  "  du  Moustiers,"  in  which  no  human 
remains  have  been  discovered.  But  in  the  deposits  of  the 
second  epoch — that  of  "  Solutre  " — a  number  of  skeletons,  more 
or  less  perfect,  have  been  exhumed,  "  well  constituted,"  says 
Mr.  A.  Arcelin,  "worthy  in  every  respect  to  be  called  men, 
although  offering,  certainly,  some  characteristics  now  belonging 
only  to  inferior  races."  But  in  the  subsequent  epoch — that  of 
"Aurignac" — to  which  the  remains  found  at  Cro  Magnon,  in 
Dordogne,  France,  are  supposed  to  belong,  far  superior  char- 
acteristics are  visible.  Dr.  Broca  published  in  the  "  Memoirs 
of  the  Anthropological  Society,"  a  most  interesting  dissertation 
on  the  subject.  He  found  that,  in  some  respects,  that  antique 
race  "  possessed  some  of  the  highest  and  noblest  traits  of  the 
human  form,  whilst  in  some  others  it  could  only  be  compared 
with  the  lowest  types  of  the  present  age." 

Already,  not  only  many  conveniences  for  life  existed,  but 
art  was  likewise  attempted  in  those  productions  of  sculpture 
and  bas-relief  of  which  we  have  already  spoken.  The  men  of 
that  very  early  age  worked  not  only  on  stone,  but  also  on  bone 
and  ivory.  The  representations  of  the  various  animals  exist- 
ing at  the  time,  and  of  which  several  species  are  now  extinct, 
are  so  well  brought  out  that  they  are  easily  recognizable  spe- 
cifically, and  their  individual  nature  is  clearly  expressed. 
There  is  even  a  kind  of  boldness  in  the  execution  which  sup- 
poses in  the  workman  a  real  artistic  taste,  at  least,  in  the  in- 
cipient stage. 

We  are  far,  it  is  evident,  from  finding  in  "  primitive  man," 
oven  in  Western  Europe,  the  brute  type  of  the  pretended 
Neanderthal  cranium  which  had  produced  such  a  lively  and 
triumphant  sensation  in  the  Darwinist  ranks,  until  it  was  proved 
that  its  age  could  not  be  ascertained,  and  that  it  might  have 


88  GENTILISM. 

belonged  to  an  idiot,  a  class  never  extinct,  even  among  the 
most  polished  and  civilized  races.  And  the  same  may  be  said 
of  several  other  human  bones  found  isolated  and  mutilated,  so 
as  to  offer  scarcely  any  positive  and  certain  characteristics. 
Yet  were  such  discoveries  as  these  invariably  received  by  the 
evolutionists  with  shouts  of  exultation. 

It  was  not  the  case  with  respect  to  the  remains  of  man  in 
what  is  called  the  Quaternary  deposit.  They  were  so  abundant 
and  so  well  preserved  that  anthropologists  began  to  study  and 
ascertain  their  characteristics ;  and  the  result  was,  in  our  opin- 
ion, a  complete  refutation  of  the  common  delusion  of  our  age 
regarding  "  primitive  man."  Dr.  Pruner-Bey  was  instrumental 
in  bringing  this  about.  He  asserted  plainly  that  they  belonged 
to  the  branch  of  the  human  family  remarkable  for  a  lozenge- 
shaped  visage,  to  which  he  had  already  given  the  name  of 
"  Mongoloid " —  much  more  extensive,  remark  it  well,  than 
the  former  Mongolian  race,  but  including  it.  He  thought  even 
that  he  could  recognize  in  the  skeletons  in  his  possession  four 
principal  types,  which  could  be  assimilated  to  races  existing  at 
the  present  time,  namely,  the  Lapps,  the  Finns,  the  Esthonians, 
and  the  Esquimaux  of  Behring  Straits. 

Therefore  the  "man"  of  the  Quaternary  period,  according 
to  Pruner-Bey,  belongs  to  history,  and  there  is,  in  fact,  no  pre- 
historic man  ;  a  discovery  so  important  that  we  must  consider 
it  somewhat  at  leisure  ;  and  the  more  we  examine  it,  the  more 
surely  shall  we  arrive  at  a  rational  solution  of  the  problem. 

first,  to  establish  firmly  the  competence  of  the  discoverer,  it 
must  be  said  that  his  declaration  was  stoutly  opposed  by  the 
transformist  school,  as  it  is  called,  namely :  by  the  partisans  of 
Darwinism.  They  pretended  that,  as,  in  the  opinion  of  their 
leader,  all  organized  beings  are  in  a  constant  state  of  transfor- 
mation, it  is  not  possible  to  establish  the  permanent  character- 
istics of  races,  and  distinguish  one  from  the  other.  This  was 
to  deny  the  possibility  of  a  scientific  natural  history ;  and  as  it 


SUPPOSED    BAKBARI3M    OF   PRIMITIVE    MAN.  89 

is  certainly  a  positive  consequence  of  their  system,  it  is  another 
proof  that  it  must  be  wrong.  But  it  is  useless  to  add  that  all 
men  in  France,  learned  in  the  science  of  anthropology,  declared 
themselves  firm  supporters  of  the  ideas  and  conclusions  of 
Pruner-Bey.  De  Quatrefages,  acknowledged  universally  as 
one  of  the  first  European  anthropologists,  distinguished  himself 
by  his  ardent  championship  of  the  discovery. 

To  understand  fully  its  paramount  importance,  and  show 
how  completely  it  undermines  the  very  existence  of  prehistoric 
times,  we  have  only  to  compare  its  results  with  the  well-known 
conclusions  of  the  best  ethnographers  of  our  age.  It  will  then 
be  found  that  the  men  of  the  Quaternary  period  belonged,  really, 
to  those  branches  of  the  human  family  which  have  been  called 
Allophylian  by  Dr.  Prichard — Turanian,  by  the  majority  of 
writers — Hamitic,  by  very  respectable  scientists  and  historians, 
and  by  the  majority  of  Christian  writers,  such  as  De  Maistre, 
Lord  Arandel,  etc.,  and  now  are  called  Mongoloid,  or  Mongo- 
lian, by  such  men  as  Dr.  Pruner-Bey,  Quatrefages,  and  Max 
Miiller. 

We  request  the  reader's  particular  attention,  since  we  are 
going  to  speak  of  the  real  "  primitive  man "  among  the  races 
degraded  not  only  by  the  Fall,  but  likewise  by  a  particular 
curse,  to  the  fact,  that,  although  the  skeletons  studied  by  Pru- 
ner-Bey belonged  to  races  far  superior  to  the  pretended  proto- 
type of  the  supposed  prehistoric  times,  still  they  were  far 
inferior  to  other  races  included,  it  is  true,  in  the  fall  of  Adam, 
but  not  in  the  curse  of  ISToah,  namely :  the  Japhetic  and  Sem- 
itic families. 

Dr.  James  C.  Prichard,  in  his  "  Researches  into  the  Physical 
History  of  Mankind,"  was  the  first  to  speak  in  extenso  of  the 
almost  universal  spread  in  primitive  times  of  various  races  com- 
paratively barbarous,  when  placed  in  juxtaposition  with  the 
Indo-European  family  of  nations.  He  called  them  Allophylian, 
and  showed  that  they  were  not  yet  extinct,  but  formed,  even 


90  GENTILISM. 

in  our  own  days,  sometimes  vast  centres  of  population,  chiefly 
in  Northern  and  Eastern  Asia,  sometimes  less  numerous  com- 
munities in  the  north  and  the  west  of  Europe.  He  showed 
that  the  Basques,  at  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees,  were  most  prob- 
ably allied  to  them ;  that  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  Iberians 
who  occupied  one-half  of  Spain-;  and  that  the  Finns  and  Lapps 
were  certainly  branches  of  the  same  family.  He  proved  it 
likewise  of  the  Tartars  and  Turks — certainly  not  a  degraded 
race.  He  includes  in  the  same  vast  agglomeration  of  nations 
all  the  tribes  of  Siberia,  together  with  the  peoples  inhabiting 
the  high  regions  of  Central  Asia,  divided  between  the  Turkish, 
Mongolian,  and  Tungusian  branches.  Finally,  besides  nume- 
rous other  less  important  tribes,  he  admitted  into  the  same 
classification  the  Thibetians,  the  Chinese,  and  Indo-Chinese 
nations ;  also  the  aboriginal  races  of  the  Dekhan  in  India,  and 
of  Ceylon,  so  different  from  the  Hindoos  of  Indo-European 
origin. 

The  "  Mongoloid  "  race  of  Dr.  Pruner-Bey,  on  which  he  in- 
grafts the  "  men  of  the  Quaternary  period,"  whose  remains 
were  discovered  at  Solutre,  and  elsewhere  in  France  and  Bel- 
gium, is,  we  may  say,  co-extensive  with  the  family  of  Allophy- 
lian  races  enumerated  by  Dr.  Prichard. 

But  the  author  of  the  "  Physical  History  of  Mankind  "  went 
further.  It  was  chiefly  by  the  study  of  the  languages  of  all 
those  tribes  that  he  showed  their  affinity.  And  he  positively 
disproved  by  his  deep  researches  the  previous  assertions  of 
Leontier,  in  his  "  Letters  to  Mr.  Langles  on  the  Literature  of 
the  Mandchoos,"  of  Klaproth  himself,  and  of  other  best-in- 
formed writers,  who  apparently  had  established  firmly  the 
opinion  of  a  radical  difference  in  the  languages  chiefly  of  the 
Tartar,  Mongolian,  and  Tungusian  families.  Dr.  Prichard  dem- 
onstrated so  completely  the  affinity  of  language  in  all  the 
tribes  and  nations  which  he  called  Allophylian,  that  from  his 
time  the  decision  has  been  considered  as  final ;  and  the  best 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  91 

ethnographers  of  our  times,  besides  such  men  as  George  Raw- 
linson  and  Max  Miiller,  fully  admit  it  as  incontestable. 

The  name,  Allophylian,  given  by  Dr.  Prichard  to  this  im- 
mense agglomeration,  was,  it  is  true,  soon  forgotten,  or  at  least 
neglected  ;  and  a  new  one,  Turanian,  was  introduced.  But  its 
introduction  brought  out  no  new  view  on  the  subject,  or  none 
worth  chronicling. 

In  Sir  George  Rawlinson's  "  Herodotus  " — Tom.  1,  Essay  xi. 
— we  find  a  succinct,  we  may  say,  indeed,  exhaustive  discussion 
on  the  "  Tatar  or  Turanian  races,"  as  he  calls  them ;  and  he  has 
certainly  collected  there  all  the  sound  erudition,  ancient  or 
modern,  which  we  possess  on  the  topic.  We  can  give  only  the 
conclusions  he  has  reached  ;  but  they  must  not  be  omitted  on 
account  of  their  importance. 

He  gives  more  details  than  Prichard  on  the  languages  used 
by  the  various  families  of  this  ancient  race,  and  admits  that  in 
"character  and  genius  the  Turanian  tongues  may  be  said  to 
resemble  one  another."  He  pretends,  it  is  true,  that  "  although 
the  connection  between  them  may  be  accounted  for  by  real  con- 
sanguinity or  descent  from  a  common  stock,  it  does  not  necessi- 
tate such  a  supposition,  but  it  may  be  sufficiently  explained 
without  it.  The  principle  of  agglutination,  as  it  is  called, 
which  is  the  most  marked  characteristic  of  their  languages, 
seems  almost  a  necessary  feature  of  any  language  in  a  constant 
state  of  flux  and  change,  absolutely  devoid  of  a  literature,  and 
maintaining  itself  in  existence  by  means  of  the  scanty  conversa- 
tion of  nomads."  But  all  the  remarks  which  follow  this  sin- 
gular or  rather  too  sweeping  opinion  of  the  learned  English- 
man, tend  to  show  that  he  believed  with  Priehard  in  the  real 
and  substantial  affinity  of  language  between  all  these  tribes. 
And  after  enumerating  the  various  original  races  of  Western 
and  Central  Asia,  he  adds  a  few  phrases,  which  we  quote 
on  account  of  their  important  bearing  on  our  present  subject : 
"  The  primitive  form  of  the  tongue  ....  has  remained,  from 


92  GENTILISM. 

the  earliest  times  to  the  present  day,  the  language  of  four-fifths 
of  Asia,  and  of  many  of  the  remoter  parts  of  Europe.  It  is 
spoken  by  the  Finns  and  the  Lapps  ....  the  Ostiaks  and 
Samoyeds,  by  all  the  various  races  which  wander  over  the  vast 
steppes  of  Northern  Asia,  and  Eastern  Europe ;  by  the  hill- 
tribes  of  India — the  Dekhan — and  by  many  nations  of  the 
Eastern  Archipelago."  We  see  its  co-extension  with  the  Allo- 
phylian  family  of  Dr.  Prichard.  To  show,  moreover,  that  their 
language  is  not  so  unsettled  as  he  seems  to  imply  in  this  pas- 
sage, he  quotes,  in  his  notes  on  the  subject,  Max  Miiller,  who 
certainly,  in  his  lectures  "  On  the  Science  of  Religion,"  in- 
cludes, with  Prichard,  Thibet  and  China  in  the  category.  And 
there  is,  and  there  certainly  has  been,  a  "literature"  in  those 
Turanian  countries.  He  mentions  several  times,  likewise,  the 
remarkable  fact  that  in  most  cuneiform. inscriptions  found  in 
formerly  civilized  countries  of  Asia,  there  is  not  only  a  Sanscrit 
as  well  as  a  Semitic  column,  but  also  a  Turanian  one,  so  that 
they  are  called  "  trilingual."  Thus  identifying,  as  many  eth- 
nographers do,  the  Turanian  with  the  Hamitic  family  of  nations. 
We  shall  show  this  more  fully  presently.  Asia  exhibits  yet 
in  all  its  principal  inscriptions  the  original  division  of  mankind 
among  the  three  sons  of  Noah,  beyond  which  we  have  no  traces 
of  "  primitive  man."  Dr.  Pruner-Bey,  in  his  classification  of 
the  races  found  in  the  quaternary  period,  cannot  consequently 
extend  it  to  the  epoch  previous  to  the  Deluge,  but  must  confine 
this  nomenclature  to  a  posterior  period  of  time,  since  it  is  only 
later  on  that  there  have  been  Lapps,  Einns,  Esthonians,  and 
Esquimaux,  whose  types  he  has  discovered  among  the  remains 
of  Solutre  and  of  Cro  Magnon.  Those  remains,  therefore, 
belong  really  to  historic,  not  to  prehistoric  times. 

A  second  general  remark  of  great  importance  made  by  Sir 
George  Rawlinson,  regards  the  priority  of  the  spread  of  the 
Turanian  family  to  the  Semitic  and  Indo-European  branches, 
which  certainly  appear  in  history  after  the  Turanians.  The 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF    PRIMITIVE   MAN.  93 

Paschal  Chronicle,  Epiphanius  (adv.  haeres),  and  John  of  Malala 
(Chronogr.),  speak  of  a  period  which  they  designate  by  the  term 
2Kv$iopb(;,  when  Turanian  or  Scythic  races  were  predomi- 
nant, and  when  Aryan  or  Semitic  civilization  does  not  seem  to 
have  been  developed.  Berosus  and  Justinus,  the  first  by  allud- 
ing to  the  Median  dynasty,  the  second  by  what  he  calls  the 
Scythic  domination,  evidently  refer  to  this  early  epoch.  In 
the  time  of  Herodotus  there  was  yet  everywhere  in  Western 
Asia  a  large  Scythic  element  in  the  population,  which  gave 
grounds  for  the  supposition  that  formerly  it  was  predominant. 
And  the  recently-discovered  cuneiform  records  place  the  fact 
beyond  a  doubt.  These  Scythic  writings  appear  not  only  in 
Media,  but  in  Persia  proper,  chiefly  at  Pasagardas. 

To  use  the  very  words  of  Rawlinson :  "  All  this  can  only  be 
accounted  for  by  the  supposition  that  before  the  great  immigra- 
tion of  the  Aryan  races  from  the  East,  Scythic,  or  Tatar,  tribes 
occupied  the  countries  seized  by  them.  This  population  was 
for  the  most  part  absorbed  in  the  conquering  element.  In 
places,  however,  it  maintained  itself  in  some  distinctness,  and 
retained  a  quasi  nationality,  standing  to  the  conquerors  as  the 
Welsh  and  ancient  Cornish  to  the  Anglo-Saxons  of  our  t  own 
country." 

On  these  sensible  observations  of  the  great  English  writer,  we 
may  be  allowed  to  remark  that  the  priority  of  which  he  speaks 
cannot  have  been  one  including  many  ages,  as  the  prehistoric 
writers  suppose.  It  is  clearly  allowable  to  speak  pf  the  prior 
period  of  SKV^IOHOS  as  of  an  historic  epoch  ;  and  thus  the 
human  remains  of  the  so-called  quaternary  deposits  in  France 
do  not  belong  in  fact  to  prehistoric  times  :  since  the  existence 
of  the  Lapps,  Finns,  Esthonians,  etc.,  being  admittedly  included 
in  that  of  the  Scythic,  or  Turanian,  or  Allophylian  tribes — 
whichever  of  these  names  the  reader  may  adopt — everything 
found  in  the  drift,  even  of  the  palaeolithic  age,  must  be  referred 
to  the  same  period  of  time. 


94  GEXTILISM. 

Sir  George  Rawlinson's  clear  details  on  the  Turanian  race  con- 
tain yet  another  remarkable  fact,  which  ought  not  to  be  omit- 
ted in  these  investigations.  The  generic  name  he  gives  to  the 
race  itself — Turanian — includes  not  only  Scythic,  or  Tatar,  tribes 
of  Central  and  Northern  Asia,  as  well  as  of  Northern  and  West- 
ern Europe,  but  likewise  the  Hamitic  populations  of  nearly  the 
whole  of  Africa,  and  of  Southern  Arabia  and  Asia.  The  de- 
tails ought  to  be  read  in  the  work  to  which  we  refer,  since 
the  limit  we  have  assigned  to  ourselves  does  not  allow  us  to 
quote  them  in  extenso.  But  from  the  whole  the  conclusion 
remains,  that  primitively  the  whole  of  Asia,  Africa,  and  prob- 
ably Europe,  was  inhabited  by  a  race  whose  language  differed 
certainly  in  most  of  the  tribes  composing  it,  but  partook  evi- 
dently of  a  common  characteristic,  and  was  of  a  similar  nature. 
This  similarity  consisted  chiefly  in  its  form  ~by  agglutination. 
The  ancient  language  of  Egypt  bore  certainly  that  character, 
as  well  as  that  of  actual  China.  That  race  is  undoubtedly  the 
most  ancient  with  which  we  now  are  acquainted.  Neverthe- 
less, the  immense  addition  to  historic  knowledge,  acquired 
lately  by  the  arduous  labors  of  many  investigators,  enables  us 
to  assert  that  it  does  not  reach  beyond  historic  times.  To- that 
race  belonged  certainly  the  skeletons  studied  by  Dr.  Pruner- 
Bey,  since  the  Lapps,  Finns,  and  Esthonians  are  invariably 
ascribed  to  it  by  all  modern  writers  on  the  subject.  But  Kaw- 
linson,  who  sticks  to  the  term  "  Turanian,"  by  which  he  distin- 
guishes it,  is  bound,  by  his  own  list  of  nations,  to  include  in 
it  all  the  Hamitic  tribes  known  in  ancient  times. 

Hence,  Christian  ethnographers  and  men  of  science  have  des- 
ignated it  by  this  last  name,  and  state  boldly,  and  probably 
truly,  that  the  children  of  Ham  spread  at  first  more  rapidly  on 
the  earth  than  those  of  Sem  and  Japhet ;  and  thus  took  posses- 
sion of  the  places  where  their  more  favored  brethren  were  to 
come  after  them,  and  to  assume  the  authority  over  them,  prom- 
ised by  the  father  of  all  future  men  —  Noah  himself.  Thus 


SUPPOSED    BARBARISM    OF   PRIMITIVE   MAN.  95 

the  priority  of  which  we  spoke  is  not  that  of  the  race  itself, 
but  of  its  extension.  The  reason  of  its  inferiority  in  this  case 
is  not  that  it  was  a  more  primitive  state  of  humanity,  but  that 
it  lay  under  a  curse.  We  may  here  remark,  incidentally,  that 
Mr.  de  Maistre,  in  his  celebrated  passage  of  the  "  Soirees  de  St. 
Petersbourg,"  quoted  by  Lord  Arundel  at  the  head  of  his  chap- 
ter on  "  Tradition,"  does  not  suppose  the  curse  to  have  been  a 
single  one,  as  that  of  Noah  referred  to  above ;  but  he  explains 
the  existence  of  perhaps  many  savage  tribes  by  the  crimes  of 
their  chieftains.  "  A  chief  of  a  nation,"  he  says,  "  having 
altered  the  principle  of  morality  in  his  household  by  one  of 
those  prevarications  which,  so  far  'as  we  can  judge,  are  no 
longer  possible  in  the  actual  state  of  things — because  happily 
our  knowledge  is  no  longer  such  as  to  allow  us  to  become  cul- 
pable in  this  degree ;  this  chief  of  a  nation,  I  say,  transmits  the 
curse  to  his  posterity ;  and  every  constant  force  being  accele- 
rating in  its  nature,  this  degradation,  weighing  incessantly  upon 
his  descendants,  has  ended  in  making  them  what  we  call 
savages" 

Here,  however,  as  we  speak  of  a  vast  primitive  race,  com- 
posed of  an  almost  indefinite  number  of  tribes,  the  curse  must 
have  happened  at  the  very  beginning  of  mankind,  and  can  be 
explained  only  by  the  fact  recorded  in'-  the  Book  of  Genesis. 
There  are  considerations  on  the  subject  in  the  chapter  "  on 
primitive  man  "  of  the  recent  work  of  Lord  Arundel,  well 
worthy  of  perusal.  He,  however,  thinks  that  the  Hamitic  fam- 
ily was  not  co-extensive  with  the  Turanian  race,  which,  he 
says,  is  a  philological,  not  an  ethnic,  entity ;  and  this  observation, 
striking  at  first,  is,  in  my  opinion,  calculated  to  create  a  far 
greater  difficulty  than  the  one  it  obviates.  The  noble  writer, 
in  the  course  of  his  remarks,  seems  to  limit  the  Hamitic  race  to 
black,  or  nearly  black,  tribes,  as  he  readily  classifies  with  it  the 
degraded  races  of  Hindostan,  the  Sudras  particularly,  on  ac- 
count of  their  dark  complexion.  But  is  he  right  in  placing 


96  GENTILISM. 

"  blackness,"  as  lie  calls  it,  among  the  essential  characteristics  of 
the  Hamitic  family  ?  The  Hamitic  race  spread  from  the  very 
beginning,  not  only  in  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  but  likewise  in  Baby- 
lonia, Palestine,  and  along  the  Syrian  coast ;  many  nations 
sprung  from  it  not  only  were  not  black,  but  were  remarkable 
for  their  ruddy  complexion. 

"We  prefer,  therefore,  not  to  distinguish,  ethnically,  the  Tu- 
ranians of  the  North  and  West  from  the  Hamites  of  the  South 
and  East.  And  in  this  we  are  in  harmony  with  the  best  ethnog- 
raphers of  our  time.  All  the  facts  we  have  adduced,  tend  to 
prove  the  real  origin  of  the  skeletons  found  in  the  "  Quater- 
nary "  deposits  of  France. 

A  great  part  of  this  is  confirmed  by  the  name  given  by 
Pruner-Bey  to  the  race  whose  remains  were  found  particularly 
at  Solutre*  and  Cro  Magnon.  He  calls  it  Mongoloid.  ]STot 
that  Mongolians  alone  are  included  in  it,  but  because  the  chief 
members  composing  the  whole  body  in  our  time  are  truly  Mon- 
golians. The  term,  then,  becomes  synonymous  with  Turanian, 
and  Max  Miiller,  everywhere  in  his  works,  but  particularly  in 
his  third  lecture  "  On  the  Science  of  Religion,"  insists  par- 
ticularly on  this  point,  that  the  "  Turanian  world,"  as  he  calls 
it,  is  chiefly  composed  in  our  days  of  "  the  Chinese,  the  Mon- 
golians, the  Samoyeds,  the  Finns,  and  the  Lapps." 

Our  readers  will,  we  think,  by  this  time  have  perceived  the 
reason  of  the  great  importance  we  have  attached  to  the  discov- 
ery of  those  human  skeletons  in  France,  studied  and  inter- 
preted by  a  learned  Frenchman,  whose  name  indicates  that 
probably  he  belongs  to  that  class  of  his  Mussulmanized  coun- 
trymen attached  to  the  service  of  the  present  Khedive  of 
Egypt,  and  that  consequently  he  had  no  preconceived  Christian 
theory  to  subserve  in  his  investigations  and  declarations. 

We  must  not  omit  another  and  last  argument  in  the  same 
direction,  which,  in  the  wealth  of  matter,  had  well  nigh 
escaped,  and  which  no  one  will  consider  as  without  weight. 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEISM    OF    PEIMITIVE   MAN.  97 

Mr.  A.  Arcelin  positively  states  that  human  types  have  been 
found  in  the  same  localities,  so  nearly  bearing  the  character- 
istics of  the  Aryan  race,  that  it  is  very  likely  some  early  migra- 
tion of  it  had  already  reached  the  centre  of  France  at  the  time 
these  diifts,  supposed  to  be  of  the  paleolithic  age,  became  the 
common  sepulchre  of  those  "  primitive  men,"  as  well  as  "  the 
rough  chipped  arrows  and  hatchets "  which  the  new  scientists 
consider  of  such  an  appallingly  ancient  origin — 200,000  years, 
according  to  the  moderate  calculation  of  Sir  John  Lubbock. 
Mr.  Arcelin,  it  is  true,  adds  that  as  the  real  and  undoubted 
Aryan  type  was  not  positively  ascertained,  it  could  not  be  given 
as  a  fact  resulting  from  these  researches.  But  those  Aryan 
characteristics,  if  not  positively  found,  were,  however,  very 
nearly  approximated  to  in  those  remains.  They  could  not  be, 
consequently,  the  relics  of  barbarians  and  savages ;  and  it  is  a 
new  proof  of  the  worthlessness  of  the  speculations  indulged  in 
by  many  modern  scientists. 

We  may,  therefore,  now  proceed  to  the  investigation  of  the 
origin  and  nature  of  primitive  man,  after  having  removed  from 
our  path  the  phantom  evoked  in  the  name  of  natural  science. 
And  yet  it  must  not  be  called  science,  but  mere  perverse  specu- 
lation, urged  in  the  teeth  of  all  history  which  teaches  us  that 
man  is  only  of  yesterday ;  of  geology  which  says  that  his  remains 
are  found  only  on  the  surface-crust  of  our  globe,  so  that  he  cannot 
have  appeared  before  the  earth  had  reached  the  form  and 
aspect  it  at  present  bears ;  in  spite  of  the  distinct  and  positive 
statements  of  revelation,  which  ascribe  to  him  an  origin 
totally  opposed  to  the  wild  and  fanciful  theory  of  an  evolu- 
tionary process  progressing  through  untold  ages ;  yet  persists 
indeed,  it  is  to  be  feared,  precisely  on  account  of  those  state- 
ments of  revelation,  in  thrusting  down  the  throats  of  men  its  far-, 
fetched  paradox,  and  in  endeavoring  to  force  them  to  believe 
that  what  is  new  must  be  called  old,  what  is  noble  must  be 
called  mean,  what  is  to  last  forever  must  be  made  perish- 


98  GENTILISM. 

able,  aiid  sure  to  disappear  with  all  the  other  shadows  of  his 
earth. 

It  is  but  comparatively  little  we  were  able  to  produce  from 
this  vast  field  of  investigation,  within  the  limits  of  a  work  of 
ordinary  dimensions.  But  we  think  we  may  be  allowed  to 
indulge  the  hope  that  our  induction  has  been  sufficient  to  sat- 
isfy the  reader  that  with  the  history  of  Hindostan,  as  well  as  that 
of  Mesopotamia,  have  really  begun  the  annals  of  mankind  ; 
and,  in  proving  what  was  their  belief  at  first,  we  prove,  in 
truth,  what  man  has  assented  to  from  his  very  origin. 


IY. 


"We  now  proceed  to  make  a  few  general  observations  on 
primitive  barbarism.  Hitherto,  we  have  only  discussed  systems 
opposed  to  what  we  believe  to  be  the  truth  ;  and  many  consid- 
erations which  have  escaped  us,  as  not  lying  directly  in  our 
line  of  thought,  may  here  be  introduced  with  advantage,  with 
the  view  of  adding  additional  cogency  to  what  has  already  been 
advanced. 

Now,  first,  as  to  the  pretended  long  ages  of  unconsciousness 
for  humanity,  which,  according  to  many  writers  of  our  age, 
have  preceded  historic  times,  and  suppose  evidently  the  state 
rather  of  the  brute  than  of  barbarism,  we  have  to  say  that  no 
barbarians  have  ever  been  discovered  without  language,  and, 
consequently,  without  real  consciousness.  And,  as  the  writers 
we  oppose,  delight  in  finding  analogies  between  the  degraded 
tribes  of  our  days  and  "  primitive  man,"  a  prompt  answer  can 
be  given  them  by  referring  to  our  existing  savages.  Nay,  the 
tongues  of  many  modern  savage  tribes  are  very  complicated 
and  rich  in  their  construction,  showing  evidently  their  degene- 
racy from  a  higher  state  ;  and  in  all,  even  in  the  agglutinative 
dialects  of  the  Turanian  nations,  there  is  always  a  completeness 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEI3M    OF    PEIMITIVE   MAN.  99 

with  respect  to  their  wants,  which  assures  us,  indeed,  that  they 
are  fully  conscious  and  wide  awake.  Nay,  should  we  try  the 
experiment  proposed  by  Max  Muller  in  the  "  Contemporary 
Review "  (January,  1875),  we  should  easily  find  that  the  im- 
perfection of  the  dialect  of  any  nation  does  not  arise  from 
their  individual  barbarism  or  even  inferiority.  "  We  see,  to- 
day, that  the  lowest  of  savages — men  whose  language  is  said 
to  be  no  better  than  the  clucking  of  hens  or  the  twittering  of 
birds,  and  who  have  been  declared,  in  many  respects,  lower 
even  than  animals — possess  this  one  specific  characteristic,  that 
if  you  take  one  of  their  babies,  and  bring  it  up  in  England,  it 
will  leam  to  speak  as  well  as  any  English  baby,  while  no 
amount  of  education  will  elicit  any  attempt  at  language  from 
the  highest  animals,  whether  bipeds  or  quadrupeds.  That 
faculty  cannot  have  been  formed  by  definite  nervous  structures, 
congenitally  framed;  for  we  are  told  that  both  father  and 
mother  clucked  like  hens  "  (page  325). 

How  can  any  one  know  that  our  ancestors  have  been  at  any 
time  unconscious  ?  It  is  a  purely  gratuitous  assertion ;  and,  as 
it  rests  on  no  basis  of  serious  argument,  it  merits  nothing  more 
than  a  peremptory  denial.  Let  prehistorians  show,  at  least, 
that  man  can  be  a  real  man,  and  at  the  same  time  a  dumb 
animal.  The  discovery  of  some  few  disinherited  outcasts — to 
borrow  a  very  appropriate  French  word — rambling  in  forests, 
and  apparently  denied  the  gift  of  speech,  is  no  proof  of  this, 
but  only  a  consequence  of  their  having  been  deprived  from 
infancy  of  the  companionship  of  other  men,  required  absolutely " 
by  the  social  nature  of  the  King  of  creation.  But,  as  soon 
as  they  were  received  in  the  bosom  of  human  society,  of  what- 
ever kind,  their  tongue  was  unloosened,  and  they  began  to 
speak.  As  to  those  born  deaf  and  dumb,  it  is  an  evident  abuse 
of  language  to  call  them  dumb  persons.  They  express  their 
ideas ;  they  speak  in  reality,  although  only  by  signs ;  they 
understand  their  friends,  and  their  friends  understand  them. 


100  GEXTILI3M. 

Yet  it  is,  we  think,  Sir  John  Lubbock  who  brings  seriously  the 
fact  of  the  deaf  and  dumb  people  as  a  proof  that  man  can  exist 
without  language. 

But  it  is  not  the  gifj  of  speech  alone  which  is  required  for 
true  consciousness,  and  without  which  man  remains  a  barbarian, 
or  rather  a  brute.  '  "Writing,  besides,  they  say,  is  necessary  to 
transmit  to  posterity  the  consciousness  of  humanity ;  and  a 
human  creature  deprived  of  that  art,  has  no  adequate  means  of 
passing  over  to  his  children  the  events  anterior  to  his  own 
time.  Tradition  by  speech  is  not  sufficient,  according  to  Sir 
John  Lubbock,  and  many  others.  Thus  in  their  estimation 
humanity  lives  only  for  the  time  being;  each  one  is  discon- 
nected from  what  went  before,  and  what  is  to  follow.  With- 
out wnting,  in  fact,  man  remains  in  childhood  all  his  life  ;  and 
the  tribal  organizations  of  such  infantine  individuals  cannot  be 
composed  but  of  barbarians,  if  not  of  savages.  But  is  not 
writing  a  really  modern  invention  ? '  Even  if  it  be  true  that 
the  art  of  writing  is  "  modern,"  tradition  by  speech  is  amply  suf- 
ficient to  transmit  to  posterity  the  important  events  of  past  ages, 
and  with  it  alone  man  can  be  a  civilized  and  noble  being.  An- 
tiquity attests  with  one  voice  to  the  retentive  memory  of  early 
men ;  and  the  practice  of  universal  oral  tradition  was  considered 
so  sure,  and  at  the  same  time  so  becoming  for  man  in  those  re- 
markable ages,  that  even  after  writing  was  invented,  the  custom 
prevailed  everywhere,  to  transmit  orally,  not  only  the  long 
series  of  previous  events,  but  even  the  most  considerable  pro- 
ductions of  primitive  literature.  It  is  known  that  the  poems  of 
Homer  were  for  many  ages  preserved  safely  in  the  memory  of 
Greece,  and  it  was  only  the  comparatively  modern  Pisistratus 
who  thought  of  having  them  committed  to  parchment  or  per- 
haps papyrus.  Many  other  facts  of  the  kind,  brought  together 
by  Lord  Arundel,  in  his  chapter  "  On  the  Tradition  of  the 
Human  Race,"  confirm  this  statement.  But  the  list  might  be 
made  much  longer,  as  he  does  not  say  a  word  of  the  immense 


SUPPOSED    BAKBAKISM    OF    PKIMITIVE   MAN.          101 

production  called  the  "Vedas,"  in  Hindostan,  which  certainly 
remained  for  a  long  time  in  the  memory  of  Brahmins,  before 
being  indited  on  lotus  leaves.  The  Zends  in  Bactria,  the  Kings 
in  China,  the  enormous  compilation  of  the  Buddhist  works  in  the 
Far-East ;  the  later  Greek  Dionysiacs,  Thebaids,  Epigoniads, 
etc.,  mentioned  by  Coleridge  in  his  "  Greek  Classic  Poets,"  have 
most  probably  to  be  placed  in  the  same  category.  Moses  cer- 
tainly, when  he  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  had  only  oral  tradition 
to  guide  him,  humanly  speaking;  the  divine  inspiration  he 
enjoyed,  having  mainly  for  its  object  to  prevent  his  falling  into 
error  in  making  the  collection.  The  mind  of  men  in  those 
times  was  so  capacious,  that,  almost  without  effort,  their  memory 
was  stored  with  the  sublimest  productions  of  human  genius ; 
and  they  seem  to  have  delighted  in  imbuing  their  whole  soul 
with  the  most  elevated  thoughts  of  those  who  had  preceded 
them.  In  making  an  estimate  of  them  we  must  adopt  a  rule 
directly  opposite  to  that  followed  by  the  "  prehistorians  "  of 
our  days.  They  predicate  of  them  all  that  is  low,  mean,  nar- 
row in  our  actually  existing  savages.  We  must  start  from  the 
other  end  of  the  series,  and  place  them  only  "  a  little  below  the 
angels,"  as  David  says. 

Hence,  even  supposing  Sir  John  Lubbock  to  be  right  in  what 
he  states  of  the  "  Tasmanians,"  who,  "  a  few  years  after  Cap- 
tain Cook  had  passed  among  them,  had  totally  forgotten  his  ap- 
pearance— which  was  that  of  the  first  white  man — on  their 
island  ;"  an  assertion,  by  the  way,  which  Lord  Arundel  haa 
victoriously  disproved ;  what  has  this  to  do  with  oral  tradition 
as  it  existed  primitively,  as  all  antiquity  shows  it  in  actual  ope- 
ration all  over  Asia  and  Europe  ?  But,  now,  is  the  art  of 
writing  modem  ?  And  can  mankind  be  said  to  have  remained 
long  ages  without  it,  and,  consequently,  in  a  half-conscious 
state  ? 

Sir  George  Rawlinson  proves  that,  at  least,  some  of  the  Tu- 
ranian nations,  in  the  oldest  historic  times,  had  already  acquired 


102  GENTILISM. 

the  art  of  writing.  The  Chaldseans  of  the  most  ancient  known 
period  were  Cushites,  and  consequently  Turanians.  We  possess 
many  inscriptions  of  those  early  ages.  They  are  invariably  on 
bricks ;  either  drawn  on  the  fresh  clay  with  the  triangular  point 
of  a  tool,  or  cast  from  a  mould  previously  engraved.  Rawlin- 
son  proves  that  it  was  a  kind  of  picture-writing  on  a  par  with 
that  of  the  more  recent  Mexicans ;  and  the  early  Chaldseans  are 
the  first  people  known  to  history.  , 

Moses  certainly  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  in  spite  of  what  Ger- 
man and  English  exegetists  may  say ;  and  Job  has  told  us  that 
even  flint — in  silice  —  was  used  in  his  time  to  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  events.  Those  great  men  had  not  degenerated 
so  far  as  to  use  the  wretched  paper  on  which  we  transcribe 
our  thoughts ;  they  wanted  theirs  to  remain  as  permanent  as 
material  things  can  be.  Hence  they  chose  the  hardest  rocks 
or  the  toughest  metals  to  write  them  on.  This,  it  is  true, 
was  perhaps  an  obstacle  to  having  large  "libraries"  in  their 
possession,  although  that  of  the  kings  of  Assyria  transported 
to  England  cannot  be  called  a  very  small  and  unimportant  one. 
They,  however,  preferred  in  general  to  make  of  their  memory 
the  store-house  of  their  longest  literary  productions. 

If  Moses  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  we  may  be  sure  that  Egyp- 
tians of  his  time  wrote,  also,  the  already  long  history  of  their 
gods.  And  we  know,  from  existing  monuments,  that,  long 
before  Moses,  they  practised  writing  either  on  granite,  or  on 
porphyry  for  great  occasions ;  keeping  papyrus  and  other  light 
materials  for  the  ordinary  uses  of  common  life.  But  we  shall 
treat  this  part  of  our  subject  more  in  detail  by  and  by. 

The  discussion  of  this  subject  at  greater  length  is  not  re- 
quired in  these  pages.  For  the  present,  we  close  our  remarks 
under  this  heading,  with  the  observation,  that  picture-writing 
is  not  necessarily  the  sign  of  a  half -barbarous  nation.  It  can 
exist  in  union  with  a  high  culture,  as  in  Mexico,  as  in  an- 
cient Egypt,  even  as  in  the  China  of  our  day,  which  has  not  yet 


SUPPOSED    BAKBAKISM    OF   PEIMITIVE   MAN.         103 

adopted  our  alphabet.  That  may  be  said  of  writing  which  has 
already  been  proved  of  the  "  stone,"  "  bronze,"  and  "  iron  " 
ages.  All  kinds  can  exist  together,  even  in  the  same  nation. 
Without  it,  a  people  can  still  enjoy  a  high  moral  elevation ; 
although  we  do  not  pretend  that  it  is  not  a  powerful  help  for 
real  and  sound  development.  In  our  times,  it  is  far  more  im- 
portant than  in  the  first  ages  of  the  world.  Our  minds  are  oc- 
cupied with  so  many  different  objects  of  thought ;  we  are  so 
little  trained  to  the  consideration  of  a  single  subject  abstracted- 
ly from  any  other,  and  we  impose  so  little  restraint  on  our  restless 
imagination,  that  writing  seems  to  be  absolutely  required  to  fix 
the  wandering  faculties  of  our  soul.  Our  memory,  especially,  • 
is  too  often  unreliable  and  unsafe.  It  was  not  so  in  the  first 
ages  of  mankind.  A  few  great  thoughts  occupied  wholly  the 
minds  of  men ;  they  were  accustomed  to  reflect  deeply  on  the 
limited  subjects  of  their  mental  activity ;  thus  everything  pre- 
sented to  their  intellectual  faculties  became  deeply  impressed, 
and  remained  permanently  in  their  souls  as  a  spiritual  treasure, 
always  full  and  always  open.  This  alone  can  explain  the  surprising 
fact  of  the  richness  and  depth  of  their  languages,  and  the  im- 
mense amount  of  inventions  which  go  back  certainly  to  the 
cradle  of  mankind. 

Finally,  the  difference  of  races,  which  appear  from  the  be- 
ginning as  distinct  as  they  are  now,  show  that  universal  barba- 
rism is  not  the  starting-point  of  humanity.  We  see,  at  the  very 
origin  of  nations,  Hindostan  and  Central  Asia  occupied  by  very 
superior  races  whose  mental  elevation  astonishes  the  modern 
student,  of  which  many  examples  will  hereafter  come  under 
our  observation ;  and,  at  the  eame  time,  by  low  and  degraded 
tribes,  called  in  the  laws  of  Menu  chandalas,  in  our  age  pariahs, 
co-existing  with  the  others,  and  remaining,  even  to  our  very  days, 
without  rising  in  the  social  scale.  We  see  in  Egypt  the  same 
phenomenon  of  a  ruling  race,  great  in  philosophy,  in  religion, 
in  art ;  and,  side  by  side,  the  debased  negro  appearing  on  the 


104  GENTILISif. 

monuments  still  in  existence,  with  all  the  signs  of  degeneracy 
and  enslavement  which  are,  to  this  day,  his  share.  We  see  the 
same  variety  and  antagonism  of  races  without  number,  in  Iran, 
in  Arabia,  in  Syria ;  and  later  on  in  Greece,  Italy,  and  the  rest 
of  Europe.  Could  the  system  of  Sir  John  Lubbock  and  his 
friends  be  confuted  more  pointedly  by  any  argument,  than  it  is 
,  by  all  these  facts  of  the  primitive  ages  ?  What  was  the  primary 
and  original  cause  of  this  strange  difference  of  races  ?  We  can- 
not know.  We  only  are  sure  that  the  human  species  was  one 
in  spite  of  all  those  divergences.  It  does  not  seem  probable 
that  they  arose  one  from  the  other,  although,  as  Dr.  Prichard 
has  shown  conclusively  in  his  great  work  on  the  "  Physical  His- 
tory of  Mankind,"  they  everywhere  pass  from  one  to  the  other 
by  almost  insensible  gradations,  so  that  the  unity  of  mankind 
is  never  contradicted  by  the  net-work  of  their  variations.  Last- 
ly, they  are  so  slow  in  changing,  that  often  the  greatest  period 
of  time  makes  scarcely  an  impression  upon  them.  We  may  re- 
peat the  question :  What  has  been  the  primary  cause  of  the  differ- 
ence of  races  among  men  ?  'No  one  can  know  positively.  Either 
the  opinion  of  De  Maistre,  quoted  above,  is  the  true  one,  or  there 
must  have  been,  at  the  origin  of  mankind,  a  far  superior  action 
of  exterior  circumstances  on  man  than  there  is  at  the  present 
time,  when  races  change  so  slowly  and  so  imperceptibly.  If 
this  last  hypothesis  is  the  right  one,  then  that  happened  moral- 
ly and  physically  for  human  land,  which  took  place  in  the  physi- 
cal order  for  the  exterior  covering  of  our  globe.  For,  no  intelli- 
gent geologist  can  admit,  that  the  alterations  of  its  surface  could 
be  always  as  slow  and  imperceptible  as  they  now  appear  to  be. 
But  meanwhile,  at  all  times,  the  passage  of  any  race  from  a 
lower  point  to  a  higher  one  is  of  the  greatest  difficulty.  It  is 
to  us  a  matter  of  wonder  to  hear  "  prehistorians "  talk,  when 
they  speak  of  it  as  if  it  was  the  "  law  of  the  moral  universe." 
In  North  America,  however,  we  meet  with  the  real  difficulty 
every  day.  Is  it  not  known,  nay,  demonstrated,  after  so 


SUPPOSED    BAEBAEISM    OF    PRIMITIVE    MAX.         105 

many  experiments,  that  it  is  almost  impossible  to  reclaim  the 
red  man,  with  all  the  means  of  culture  which  surround  him  ? 
Is  not  the  same  true  of  many  tribes  of  Africa,  of  Polynesia,  of 
South  America  ?  And,  if  in  human  history,  many  nations  have 
effectually  passed,  on  many  occasions,  from  a  low  degree  of 
culture  to  a  higher  one,  to  the  highest,  in  fact,  in  some  excep- 
tionable cases — have  they  not  invariably  been  helped  up  to  it 
at  least  at  the  beginning  of  the  struggle,  and  a  long  time  per- 
haps of  their  national  existence?  The  Hellenes,  one  of  the 
most  remarkable  examples  of  it,  thus  had  certainly  received  a 
great  deal  at  first  from  the  anterior  civilization  of  Hindostan 
and  Egypt.  The  same  was  the  case  with  the  Romans  with  re- 
spect to  the  Etruscans  and  the  Hellenes.  The  northern  barba- 
rians who  destroyed  the  Roman  Empire  possessed,  certainly,  in 
their  intimate  nature,  some  germ  deposited  there  by  their 
long-forgotten  ancestors  of  Central  Asia — germs  developed  with 
infinite  pains  by  Christianity,  which,  first  humanized  and  after- 
ward civilized  them. 

Thus  the  self-educating  principle  is  seen  nowhere  in  history. 
And  on  this  account,  we  presume,  the  "  prehistorians "  set 
themselves,  from  the  start,  in  fierce  opposition  to  history  and 
tradition.  We  cannot  do  this.  We  propose,  on  the  contrary, 
to  consult  them  with  all  the  zeal  of  ardent  inquirers,  bent  on 
discovering  the  mystery  of  Isis  by  raising  her  veil. 


CHAPTER  III. 

ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    OBSCURED    OR    DESTROYED    BY    PANTHEISM    OB 
POLYTHEISM  IN  HINDOSTAN. 

THE  best  directed  efforts  to  ascertain  the  origin  of  man,  or 
primeval  religion,  by  the  facts  of  geology  or  zoology,  can  at 
best  only  result  in  more  or  less  probable  conjectures.  The 
gradual  development  of  the  globe,  even,  has  not  been  yet 
proved  by  so  many  arduous  mental  labors;  for  scientists  are 
not  agreed  about  many  important  details.  And,  in  the  classifi- 
cation of  organized  beings,  opinions  are  almost  as  various  as 
individuals.  How  can  we  hope  to  come  to  a  more  satisfactory 
conclusion  with  respect  to  man  and  his  religious  feelings,  when 
the  remains  we  have  of  him  are  so  scanty,  and  their  surround- 
ings so  problematical  ?  History  and  the  cognate  sciences  are 
much  more  likely  to  tell  us  the  truth  on  those  important  sub- 
jects. We  have  at  least  in  them  positive  records,  which  speak 
for  themselves,  and  place  directly  the  men  of  old  in  intimate 
communication  with  us.  Particularly  since  philology  has  made 
BO  many  gigantic  strides  of  late  years  on  a  ground  formerly 
closed,  in  appearance  at  least,  against  the  most  persevering  stu- 
dent. Its  former  field,  confined  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  lan- 
guages, with  a  smattering  of  the  Semitic  tongues — Hebrew, 
Syriac,  and  Arabic — has  been  extended  so  as  to  include,  not 
only  the  Sanscrit  and  the  Egyptian,  but  even  the  Turanian 
idioms,  with,  their  mere  agglutinative  process  and  most  primi- 
tive grammars.  Champollion  has  given  us  the  key  of  the 
hieroglyphs  ;  and  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  of  every  shape 
have  now  scarcely  any  mystery  for  our  antiquarians.  The 
Cushite  tongue,  spoken  by  the  near  successors  of  the  builders 
(106) 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  107 

of  Babel,  nay,  engraved  on  the  very  bricks  which  remain  of 
it,  reveals  its  meaning  to  the  scientific  academician  of  London 
or  Paris ;  and  the  amulet  of  the  negro,  the  totem  of  the  red 
Indian,  are  no  more  mere  objects  of  wonder  or  pity,  but  speak 
to  the  understanding  of  our  Schoolcrafts  or  Catlins. 

And  not  only  the  writing  of  man,  but  his  manual  work  even, 
is  often  as  eloquent  as  language  to  transmit  his  ideas  and 
social  customs  to  a  later  age.  At  this  very  moment  the  his- 
tory of  Egypt  is  being  reconstructed  from  its  monuments. 
Hundreds  of  ardent  explorers  are  busy  examining  them,  un- 
earthing them,  measuring  their  vast  size,  and  reproducing  on 
paper,  by  the  art  of  the  engraver,  their  grand  proportions  and 
gigantic  surroundings.  On  pyramids,  obelisks,  walls,  colossal 
statues,  signs  no  longer  mysterious  indicate  what  happened 
thousands  of  years  ago ;  and  the  former  lists  of  Manetho  are 
from  them  recomposed,  combined,  and  made  at  last  to  agree. 
The  archaeologist  has  found  likewise  the  means  of  judging  of 
antiquity  by  the  mere  aspect  of  a  monument,  and  the  historical 
succession  of  former  times  is  graphically  represented  by  a  sim- 
ple series  of  architectural  drawings. 

Enriched  with  all  these  precious  fruits  of  an  arduous,  but  in 
the  end  pleasing  and  useful  study,  the  exact  and  impartial  his- 
torian can  at  last  pronounce,  without  fear  of  great  error,  the 
verdict  of  truth  on  the  most  ancient  ages.-  We  are  at  least  in 
much  less  danger  of  being  misinformed  and  deceived ;  no  longer 
are  we  limited  to  the  untmstworthiness  of  feeble  guesses,  and 
it  is  the  consciousness  of  this  invaluable  truth  which  inspires 
us,  when  we  open  the  noble  books  where  all  this  learning  is 
condensed.  The  great  works  of  Wilkinson,  Max  Miiller,  the 
two  Rawlinsons,  the  Sanscrit  scholars  of  India,  and  many 
others  in  the  English  language  ;  those  of  Spiegel,  Haug,  etc.,  in 
the  German ;  the  writings  of  Champollion,  Burnouf,  Lenor- 
mant,  Comte  de  Rouge,  and  others  in  French ;  those  of  Rosel- 
liui,  etc.,  in  Italian,  are  much  more  likely  to  be  of  real  service 


108  GENTILISM. 

to  us  in  our  investigations  into  the  origin  of  human  society, 
than  all  the  possible  speculations  on  the  rough  stone  imple- 
ments of  France,  Belgium,  and  England,  added  to  the  nume- 
rous observations  and  experiments  on  hybridism  and  natural 
selection. 

Moreover,  when  we  consider  that  the  more  historical  studies 
progress,  the  more  profane  learning  becomes  reconciled  to  our 
sacred  records,  that  is,  to  the  most  ancient  writings  in  existence, 
we  find  in  this  reflection  a  new  motive  of  assurance,  which  is 
absolutely  wanting  whenever  a  new  theory  suggests  conclusions 
in  opposition  to  our  Holy  Scriptures.  For,  independently  of 
Christian  faith,  if  we  follow  only  the  dictates  of  reason,  the 
books  which  form  our  Bible  ought  to  be  considered  as  of  great 
weight  merely  as  historical  records  of  the  past ;  and  whatever 
new  discovery  in  science,  or  intellectual  research  of  any  kind, 
agrees  with  them,  finds  in  this  agreement  a  corroboration  and 
a  strong  support ;  whilst  -on  the  contrary  whatever  new  specula- 
tion opens  a  prospect  of  antagonism  to  them,  ought  by  this 
very  fact  to  become  an  object  of  suspicion  and  distrust. 


I. 


If,  then,  God  spoke  in  the  beginning  to  mankind,  whose 
primitive  religion  must  thus  have  been  a  pure  monotheism ;  if 
man  did  not  begin  by  the  savage  state,  but  enjoyed  high  moral 
prerogatives  at  his  first  entrance  into  the  world ;  as  we  believe 
modern  theories  on  the  origin  of  our  species  are  really  founded 
on  false  suppositions  or  on  mere  conjectures,  primeval  history 
must  say  something  of  that  golden  age,  and  show  the  idea  of 
one  eternal,  infinite,  all-powerful  God,  existing  in  the  tradi- 
tions of  mankind,  previous  to  all  polytheistic  errors. 

A  hundred  years  ago  this  could  not  have  been  asserted.  A 
true  knowledge  of  antiquity  did  not  then  exist ;  and  it  is  only 


ABORIGINAL    KELIGIOX    IN    HI^DOSTATT.  109 

in  our  times,  quite  recently,  indeed,  that  the  veil  covering  the 
infancy  of  the  human  race  begins  to  be  raised,  independently 
of  the  infallible  Hebrew  and  Christian  records. 

The  question,  however,  of  the  introduction  of  polytheism  is, 
no  doubt,  not  unattended  with  difficulties.  Nevertheless,  yet, 
on  the  whole,  the  universal  voice  of  history  in  that  regard  is  so 
precise,  that  the  conclusion  may  be  said  to  amount  almost  to 
demonstration. 

For  us,  Christians,  the  truth  is  known,  since  the  word  of  God 
has  revealed  it  to  us ;  and  we  place  it  far  above  the  oldest  In- 
dian, Persian,  or  Egyptian  pronouncements.  And  yet,  if  we 
discover  that  it  is  supported  by  these,  our  previous  faith  re- 
ceives a  subsequent  confirmation  of  no  mean  value.  We,  there- 
fore, begin  by  quoting  the  simple  statement  contained  in  the 
Book  of  Wisdom  on  the  origin  of  idolatry.  And  some  of  our 
readers  may  be  afterwards  surprised  to  find,  that  the  ascer- 
tained history  of  Hindostan,  Egypt,  Greece,  and  other  countries, 
is,  after  all,  the  strict  fulfilment  of  a  single  chapter  of  the  Old 
Testament.  It  is  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Wisdom,  which  first 
makes  a  most  remarkable  distinction  between  those  "  who  wor- 
shipped the  works  of  God  " — Nature — and  those  who  "  adored 
the  works  of  man" — Idols.  What  took  place,  historically, 
everywhere  on  earth,  in  the  declension  from  monotheism  to  pan- 
theism, and  from  this  last  to  strict  idolatry,  could  not  be  more 
clearly  expressed :  Men  first  had  received  "  the  knowledge  of 
God ;"  but  later,  "  by  the  good  things  that  are  seen,  they  could 
not  understand  Him,  that  is ;  neither  by  attending  to  the  works 
have  they  acknowledged  who  was  the  workman.  But  they 
have  imagined  either  the  fire,  or  the  wind,  or  the  swift  air,  or 
the  circle  of  the  stars,  or  the  great  water,  or  the  sun  and  moon, 
to  be  the  gods  that  rule  the  world :  with  whose  beauty,  if  they, 
being  delighted,  took  them  to  be  gods,  let  them  know  how 
much  the  Lord  of  them  is  more  beautiful ;  for  the  first  author 
of  beauty  made  all  those  things.  Or  if  they  admired  their 


110  GENTILISM. 

power  and  their  effects,  let  them  understand  by  them  that  He 
that  made  them  is  mightier  than  they." 

Divine  revelation  tells  us,  in  these  few  words,  precisely 
what  happened,  according  to  well-ascertained  history.  After  a 
period  of  universal  monotheism,  the  nations  began  to  worship 
"  the  works  of  God,"  and  fell  generally  into  a  broad  pantheism. 
They  took  subsequently  a  second  step,  perfectly  well  marked, 
later  on,  in  Hindostan,  Central  Asia,  Egypt,  Greece,  etc. ;  a  step 
originating  everywhere  in  the  imagination  of  poets,  material- 
izing God,  bringing  Him  down  to  human  nature  and  weakness, 
and  finally  idealizing  and  deifying  His  supposed  representa- 
tions in  statuary  and  painting. 

The  author  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  describes  this  last  down- 
ward step  toward  pure  idolatry,  in  the  second  part  of  his  thir- 
teenth chapter,  and  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth.  And  we 
shall  now  proceed  to  place  the  reader  in  possession  of  historical 
facts  which  will  satisfy  him  of  the  faithfulness  of  the  descrip- 
tion by  what  actually  took  place  in  history.  The  text  itself : 
"  If  a  carpenter  hath  cut  down  in  the  woods  a  tree,"  etc.,  need 
not  be  quoted  as  even  modern  apologues  have  made  it  familiar 
to  everybody. 

n. 

There  is,  first,  a  general  remark,  not  without  force  certainly, 
which  will  naturally  introduce  the  subject.  It  is  this :  No  one 
can  refuse  to  admit  that  monotheism  always  existed  among  the 
Hebrews,  from  the  time  of  the  patriarchs  downward,  and  that 
the  various  attempts  to  introduce  idolatry  among  them  were 
always  successfully  repressed.  So  that  the  nation  continued 
throughout  its  history  monotheistic.  This  high,  intelligent 
worship,  supposing  in  man  an  advanced  state  of  knowledge 
and  civilization,  incompatible  certainly  with  barbarism — con- 
sequently never  expected  to  be  found  in  savage  tribes,  in  a  state 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAN.  Ill 

of  society  such  as  the  human  race  is  fancied  by  modem  the- 
orists to  have  invariably  presented  at  its  cradle — was  certainly 
the  religion  of  the  Hebrew  race  from  its  great  progenitor, 
Abraham.  At  the  same  epoch,  likewise,  many  noble  traditions 
about  creation,  the  origin  of  moral  evil,  the  hope  of-  better 
things ;  including  a  moral  code  worthy  of  God  and  of.  man,  and 
a  firm  belief  in  Divine  Providence — that  is,  an  infinite,  benevo- 
lent Power  far  above  all  "  the  forces  of  nature  " — these  tradi- 
tions, we  say,  must  have  been  likewise,  owing  to  the  unity  of 
the  human  species,  the  heirloom  of  other  nations  existing  at 
that  time  in  the  same  tribal  state.  Now,  besides  what  we 
know  of  the  Canaanite  Melchisedech,  of  the  Arabian  Job,  and 
a  little  later  of  the  Cushite  Balaam,  etc.,  besides  all  these,  the 
people  of  the  whole  of  Hindostan,  and  of  Central  Asia  at  the* 
north  of  it,  was  living  precisely  in  the  same  conditions,  in  the 
same  original  state  of  clanship,  to  which  we  alluded  in  our  first 
chapter.  But  what  is  more,  at  this  present  time  when  their 
primitive  books  can  be  well  understood,  we  are  sure  that  those 
numerous  tribes  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  a  pure  and  exalted 
monotheism,  untainted,  as  yet,  not  only  by  the  gross  idolatry  . 
which  now  prevails  in  those  unfortunate  countries,  but  even  by 
the  grand  and  all-absorbing  pantheism  by  which  it  was  too  soon 
invaded. 

We  say  the  whole  of  Hindostan,  and  Central  Asia  at  the 
north  of  it :  because  it  is  now  demonstrated  that  this  was  the 
native  country  of  that  old,  rich  Sanscrit  language  in  which  the 
three  first  Vedas  were  written,  as  well  as  the  Zends,  namely : 
the  books  attributed  to  Zoroaster.  Strabo  remarked  it  as  a 
fact  of  his  own  time,  when  Hindoo  civilization  was  already  on 
the  wane  :  "  The  name  of  Ariana  is  extended  so  as  to  include 
some  parts  of  Persia,  Media,  Bactria,  and  Sogdiana  in  the 
north ;  for  these  nations  speak  nearly  the  same  language." 
(Book  xv.,  c.  xi.,  §  8). 

Bactria  and  Sogdiana,  therefore,  the  eastern  part. of  what  wo 
9 


112  GENTILISM.  • 

call  Persia,  and  northern  half  of  India,  is  the  great  country 
which  ought  to  attract  our  attention.  But  as,  owing  to  some 
unfortunate  mistakes  of  former  learned  and  well-intentioned 
critics,  which  have  long  delayed  the  discovery  of  the  whole 
truth*  with  regard  to  the  antiquity  of  the  Zends,  it  has  becoms 
an  established  custom  to  consider  the  three  first  Vedas  as  exclu- 
sively Hindoo,  and  the  Zend-Avesta  as  exclusively  Persian,  when 
both  were  Aryan  books,  previous  to  the  division  of  the  people ; 
we  propose  to  take  an  historical  survey  of  those  countries  apart ; 
and  to  study,  one  after  the  other,  their  tribal  system,  and  the 
real  primitive  doctrines  of  their  books.  We  shall  thus  ascer- 
tain the  identity  of  their  origin,  as  well  as  the  primeval  religion 
and  social  life  of  the  tribes. 

III. 

First,  then,  their  civil  and  social  condition. 

When  Alexander  reached  the  Indus  and  invaded  the  country 
beyond,  he  found  himself  in  what  we  now  call  the  Punjaub, 
and  was  surprised  to  meet,  not  the  monarch  of  a  great  empire, 
but  the  petty  chieftains  of  many  a  tribe  of  warriors,  the  ances- 
tors, it  is  now  believed,  of  the  modern  Rajpoots.  The  name  of 
the  most  valiant  of  them  was  Poros — in  the  Hindoo  language  it 
must  have  been  Puru.  ^earchus,  the  commander  of  the  Macedo- 
nian fleet,  Onesicritus,  an  amateur  historian  who  followed  Alex- 
ander, Megasthenes  and  Deimachus,  sent  later  as  ambassadors 
to  the  Head-Sovereign  of  India,  at  Palibothra  on  the  Ganges, 
all  spoke  in  their  works,  now  lost,  except  that  of  the  first,  of  an 
immense  number  of  nations  living  in  that  vast  country,  each  of 
them  governed  by  a  king  in  the  Greek  language,  by  a  chieftain 
in  our  own,  by  a  rajah  in  the  modern  Hindoo  dialect.  Strabo, 
(Book  xv.,  c.  1.,  §  3),  says  that  "  Writers  affirm  that  the  Mace- 
donians conquered  nine  nations  between  the  Hydaspes  and 
the  Hypanis  (now  called  the  Behul  and  the  Beas),  and  obtained 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IX    HINDOSTAX.  113 

possession  of  five  hundred  cities."  Xearchus,  likewise,  in  sail- 
ing down  the  Indus  to  its  mouth,  met  with  many  nations  in- 
habiting the  countries  of  Porticanus  and  Musicanus,  as  he  calls 
them.  Thus,  also,  Arrian  and  Ptolemy  describe  the  western 
part  of  the-  Deccaii  exactly  as  it  appeared  to  the  Portuguese 
fifteen  hundred  years  later. 

It  is  supposed  that  Alexander  with  his  army,  advanced  into 
the  interior  of  the  country  only  about  half-way  between  the 
Indus  and  the  Ganges ;  but  he  heard  of  a  great  empire  .whose 
capital,  called  Palibothra,  was  built  on  this  last-named  river. 
Megasthenes  later  on  visited  it,  and  many  details  of  his  narra- 
tive, now  lost,  have  been  preserved  by  Strabo,  Pliny,  Arrian, 
and  others.  What  was  then  the  great  empire  of  the  Prasii  ? 
For  such  was  the  name  it  bore. 

First,  Strabo  remarks,  that  "  the  king,"  besides  his  indi- 
vidual name,  had  always  the  surname  of  "  Palibothrus,"  and  he 
adds :  "  Such  also  is  the  custom  among  the  Parthians ;  for  all 
have  the  name  '  Arsacse,'  although  each  has  his  peculiar  name 
of  Orodes,  Phraates,"  etc.  Therefore,  the  "  Emperor  of  the 
Prasii "  was  the  head  of  a  great  clan  called  Palibothrus.  "We 
shall  have  the  same  remark  to  make  of  the  tribe  of  the  "  Achse- 
menidae  "  in  Persia. 

Secondly,  although  Alexander  heard  of  the  empire  of  Prasii 
as  the  most  powerful  in  India,  yet  it  could  not  have  extended 
over  the  whole  country ;  since  we  know  the  west  was  altogether 
out  of  his  control ;  and,  on  the  south-east,  the  country  of  the 
Gangarides  marked  its  boundary.  It  did  not,  therefore,  in- 
clude modern  Bengal.  In  fact,  it  comprised  merely  modern 
Behar,  with  some  adjacent  provinces. 

But  even  in  that  limited  extent,  it  was  nothing  like  a  cen- 
tralized government ;  for,  from  the  whole  social  state  of  the 
country  at  the  time,  it  is  fair  to  conclude  that  the  monarch  at 
the  head  of  it  was  only  the  suzerain  of  a  great  number  of 
almost  independent  chieftains  or  rajahs. 


114  GE^TILISM. 

We  have  already  remarked  that  the  social  or  political  life  of 
mankind  began  by  clanship.  It  now  appears  that  in  India, 
that  state  of  things  continued  to  exist  as  far  down  as  the  time 
of  Alexander  the  Great.  "We  shall  see  that  to  a  great  extent  it 
has  continued  to  our  days. 

But  were  all  those  tribes,  or  nations,  as  they  are  called  by 
the  historians  of  the  times,  real  clans ;  so  that  all  may  be  said 
to.  have  been  "  blood  relations  ?"  It  is  difficult,  or  rather  im- 
possible, to  answer  with  certainty  such  a  question.  The  learned 
men,  even  of  the  age  of  Alexander,  even  of  the  Augustan  age, 
which  followed,  knew  nothing  of  what  is  called  now  "  Social 
Science."  Julius  Caesar,  after  a  ten  years'  residence  in  Celtic 
Gaul,  had  not  the  least  idea  of  the  clan  system.  Authors, 
then,  attached  a  great  importance  to  the  physical  description 
of  foreign  countries,  to  the  exterior  peculiarities  of  the  people 
inhabiting  them,  to  their  outward  manners  and  customs,  to 
their  literary  culture,  or  the  reverse.  They  generally  passed  very 
lightly  over  the  real  constitution  of  their  government,  and  the 
secular  institutions  which  really  ruled  them,  but  which  require 
considerable  philosophical  acumen  for  their  analysis  and  expo- 
sition. We  have,  therefore,  often  to  trust  to  a  few  incidental 
phrases  which  seem  to  have  escaped  writers  almost  uncon- 
sciously, and  which  help  a  modern  reader  to  an  insight  into  the 
political  and  social  institutions  of  those  people,  about  which 
such  writers  as  those  we  have  named  did  not  concern  them- 
selves. 

The  few  words  of  Strabo  on  the  name  "  Palibothrus,"  are  of 
that  character.  But  we  are  not  confined  to  their  testimony  in 
the  present  case.  If  the  men  who  then*  composed  the  tribes 
were  not  blood  relations  in  the  same  sense  as  the  Celtic,  Jew- 
ish, or  Arabian  septs,  they  had  certainly  been  so  originally. 
And  a  sure  indication  of  it  was  that  everything  in  their  social 
organization  was  determined  by  strict  marriage-rules.  It  may 
be  said  that  one-half  at  least  of  the  laws  of  Menu  have  for 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  115 

their  object  to  regulate  marriage  relations,  by  establishing  the 
strictest  rules  with  respect  to  the  bonds  of  consanguinity,  and  the 
innumerable  consequences  which  may  follow  with  respect  to 
purity  of  blood  or  the  reverse.  But,  in  liindostan,  this  strict 
marriage-relationship  took  the  shape  of  castes,  not  of  clans ; 
not,  however,  from  the  beginning,  not  from  Vedic  times.  At 
the  origin  of  the  system  'a  distinction  had  been  established 
among  brothers,  which  was  to  continue  for  all  time  to  come. 
Three  classes: — not  yet  castes,  since  the  laws  of  Menu  do  not 
speak  of  them — had  been  admitted  to  be  pure  :  the  Brahmins, 
the  Kshastriyas,  and  the  Vaisyas ;  the  fourth,  the  class  of  the 
Sudras,  was  declared  impure,  not  regenerated.  Their  more 
fortunate  brethren  had  been  twice  born,  and  could  alone  wear 
the  thread  of  regeneration.  "What  was  the  original  cause  of 
these  strange  distinctions?  At  what  time  were  they  intro- 
duced ?  No  one  can  tell.  And  the  only  explanation  given  by 
the  Hindoos,  is,  that  the  first  class  was  born  of  the  mouth  of 
Brahma ;  the  second  of  his  arm ;  the  third  of  his  thigh,  and  the 
last  of  his  feet.  The  chandalas,  pariahs,  etc.,  did  not  belong 
to  the  nation ;  they  were  aliens,  and  became  outcasts. 

But  it  is  a  fact  now  perfectly  well  established,  that  the  opin- 
ion of  Greek  and  Latin  writers  who  pretend  that  marriage 
was  absolutely  forbidden  between  the  various  classes,  so  as  to 
be  really  impossible,  is  a  mistaken  one ;  and  that,  at  the  very 
origin  of  the  nation,  when  the  Vedas  and  the  laws  of  Menu  were 
written,  nothing  was  so  common  as  those  inter-marriages.  All 
the  consequences  of  them  were  mere  disabilities,  some  of  them 
not  of  a  very  grave  character,  and  not  carrying  with  them  any 
stain  or  "  impurity,"  when  such  unions  took  place  between  the 
three  first  castes.  That  cases  of  the  kind  happened  frequently 
even  in  the  most  ancient  times,  results  clearly  from  many  pas- 
sages of  the  laws  of  Menu,  where  the  reader  may  find  striking  and 
extremely  interesting  examples  of  them  all  through  the  book, 
but  chiefly  in  the  whole  tenth  chapter :  on  the  mixed  classes. 


116  GENTILISM. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  numerous  mixed  castes  mentioned 
by  valious  authors  who,  even  in  our  age,  cannot  agree  as  to  their 
number,  and  increase  it  sometimes  indefinitely,  came  from  the 
facility  left  to  individuals  to  choose  their  wives  in  inferior 
or  superior  castes. 

This  alone  shows  the  importance  that  was  ascribed  to  blood- 
relationship  in  India.  It  may  be  said  to  have  ruled  everything 
in  the  country,  as  it  did  in  the  old  Celtic  nations.  But  the 
result  was  very  different,  as  its  action  differed  so  considerably. 
Hence,  Heeren  could  say,  in  his  great  work  on  India,  Chapter 
II.  (the  underlines  are  ours) :  "  The  distinctions  of  castes, 
though  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  constitution  itself,  at 
least,  in  the  three  superior  ones,  is  based  upon  the  organization 
of  families.  The  desire  of  perpetuating  the  memorial  of  his 
house  by  heirs  male,  is,  to  a  Hindoo,  one  of  the  most  lively 
importance ;  and  the  want  of  sons  is  considered  a  misfortune 

only  to  be  remedied  by  adoption We  have  already  seen 

what  frequent  use  the  Indian  poets  have  made  of  this  national 
peculiarity ;  and  how,  both  in  the  epic  poem  and  in  the  drama, 
the  preservation  of  a  male  child  is  often  the  main  point  on 
which  the  action  of  the  piece  turns." 

This  remarkable  difference  between  the  tribal  system  of 
Hindostan,  and  that  of  other  primitive  nations,  being  kept 
in  view,  we  must  come  to  the  numerous  points  of  agreement 
between  both ;  so  numerous,  indeed,  that  the  conclusion  forces 
itself  upon  the  mind,  that  both  belonged  evidently  to  tl  e 
venerable  patriarchal  period.  We  speak  of  the  uniformity  of 
institutions,  not  of  the  character  of  the  two  peoples,  which 
are  altogether  different. 

First,  then,  as  to  the  village,  or,  rather,  township.  This  uni- 
versal social  and  civil  element  in  India,  which  bears  to-day 
exactly  the  features  it  had  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago,  is, 
in -reality,  a  small  elan;  with  its  head  called  the  potaU,  who, 
superintending  the  affairs  of  the  community,  settling  disputes, 


ABORIGESTAL   RELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAIf.  117 

attends  to  the  police  and  collection  of  taxes,  and  is  the  exact 
reproduction  of  the  small  chieftain  and  brehon  judge* ;  with 
the  Bjrahniin  priest  and  astrologer,  another  name  for  the  old 
Druid  and,  Ollamh  ;  with  its  poet,  rhapsodist,  and  schoolmaster, 
instead  of  the  shanachy  and  the  file;  with  their  several  other 
officers,  whose  counterparts  could  be  found  easily  in  the  old 
Celtic  septs.  And  to  render  the  similarity  more  perfect,  all 
these  functionaries  were  paid  in  the  same  manner,  either  in 
land  or  in  a  certain  quantity  of  grain  furnished  by  the  agri- 
culturists of  the  community. 

According  to  an  evidently  well-informed  author,  quoted, 
without  name,  in  "  Chambers'  Encyclopaedia"  (Lippincott's  ed., 
1872) :  "  Under  this  simple  form  of  municipal  government, 
the  inhabitants  of  the  country  have  lived  from  time  imme- 
morial. •  The  boundaries  of  the  village  have  been  but  seldom 
altered ;  and  though  the  villages  themselves  have  been  some- 
times injured,  and  even  desolated  by  war,  famine,  and  disease, 
the  same  name  of  the  township,  the  same  limits,  and  even  the 
same  families  have  continued  for  ages.  The  inhabitants  'give 
themselves  no  trouble  about  the  breaking  up  or  division  of 
kingdoms.  So  long  as  the  village  remains  entire,  they  care 
not  to  what  power  it  is  transferred,  or  to  what  sovereign 
it  devolves.  Its  internal  economy  remains  unchanged ;  the 
potail  is  still  the  head  inhabitant,  and  still  acts  as  the  petty 
judge  and  magistrate,  and  collector,  tor  renter  of  the  village." 

Heeren  proves  that  these  strange  organizations  have  existed 
in  India  as  far  back  as  the  time  of  Menu,  whose  laws  spoke  of 
them,  probably,  1,500  years  before  Christ.  He  says :  "  The 
whole  seems  to  have  originated  in  the  partial  organization 
of  isolated  communities,  which,  with  their  respective  head- 
men, might  be  considered  as  so  many  petty  States ;  and  this 
fundamental  institution  still  continued  to  subsist  even  when 
several  of  these  townships  or  communities  were  united  under 
the  dominion  of  one  Rajah,  and  thus  formed  a  part  of  a  larger 


118  GENTILISM. 

State  or  kingdom  " — we  should  say  tribe.  "  In  the  northern 
parts  of  India,  particularly  near  the  Ganges,  where  the  irrup- 
tions of  foreign  conquerors  succeeded  each  other  like  the 
waves  of  the  ocean,  all  traces  of  the  primitive  form  must 
•  have  long  since  been  obliterated ;  but  in  the  southernmost 
division  of  the  peninsula,  in  Mysore  and  Malabar,  etc.,  which 
were  least  of  all  exposed  to  foreign  invasions,  they  are  still  in 
existence  at  the  present  day." 

We  have  thus,  under  our  own  eyes,  many  precious  remnants 
of  a  primitive  civilization,  which  has  disappeared  everywhere 
else,  and  which  calls  to  our  remembrance  the  heroic  times 
anterior  to  the  formation  of  great  monarchies  and  republics.* 


IY. 


"We  may  now  treat  briefly  of  those  simple  arid  pure  manners, 
untainted  yet  with  idolatry  of  any  kind,  and  elevated  by  the 
doctrines  of  the  holiest  and  highest  monotheism. 

As  late  as  the  expedition  of  Alexander,  Onesicritus,  accord- 
ing to  Strabo  (Book  xv.,  ch.  1,  §  34),  had  remarked  this  in 
particular  of  the  tribes  living  near  the  mouth  of  the  Indus 
river.  They  were  governed  by  chiefs  whom  he  calls  Porti- 
canus  and  Musicanus  —  their  Hindoo  names  are,  no  doubt, 
strangely  disfigured.  "  The  inhabitants  of  that  country,"  he 
says,  "  are  long-lived,  and  that  life  is  protracted  to  the  age  of 
130  years ;  they  are  temperate  in  their  habits,  and  healthy ; 
although  their  country  produces  everything  in  abundance.  The 
following  are  their  peculiarities :  to  have  a  kind  of  Lacedremoj 

*  The  similarity  of  institutions  in  old  Hindostan  and  in  the  former 
Celtic  countries  is  so  striking,  and  the  consideration  of  it  is  so  important 
with  respect  to  the  primitive  state  of  mankind,  which  is  now  the  object 
of  our  investigation,  that  we  give  a  more  extensive  sketch  of  it  in  an 
Appendix  at  the  end  of  this  volume. 


ABORIGINAL    KELIGION    IN   HrNDOSTAlST.  119 

nian  common  meal,  which  they  partake  of  in  common.  Their 
food  consists  of  what  is  taken  in  the  chase.  They  make  no  use 
of  gold  nor  of  silver,  although  they  have  mines  of  these  metals. 
Instead  of  slaves,  they  employ  youths  in  the  flower  of  their  age. 

They  study  no  science  with  attention  but  that  of  medicine 

There  is  no  process  of  law  among  them  but  against  murder  and 
outrage." 

Megasthenes,  speaking  of  the  Prasii,  living  far  down  on  the 
Gauges,  at  a  great  distance  from  the  just-mentioned  tribes, 
says :  "  Charmers  go  about  the  country,  and  are  supposed  to 
cure  wounds  made  by  serpents.  This  seems  to  comprise  nearly 
their  whole  art  of  medicine,  for  diseases  are  not  frequent 
among  them,  which  is  owing  to  their  frugal  manner  of  life, 
and  to  the  absence  of  wine ;  whenever  diseases  do  appear,  they 
are  treated  by  the  sophistae  (or  wise  men)."  With  respect  to 
the  "  absence  of  wine,"  we  shall  see  directly  what  was  their 
"  homa,"  or  "  soma,"  which  replaced  it. 

It  seems,  therefore,  that  already  Brahmins  practised  the  heal- 
ing art  as  they  do  now ;  whilst  formerly  the  law  of  Menu  for- 
bid them  to  have  anything  to  do  with  physicians,  who  ought  to 
be  considered,  according  to  that  code,  as  a  degraded  class,  im- 
pure, it  seems,  from  their  barbarous  surgical  operations,  etc. 

Strabo  says,  again,  (same  chapter,  §  53) :  "  All  the  Hindoos 
are  frugal  in  their  mode  of  life,  especially  in  camp.  They  do 
not  tolerate  useless  and  undisciplined  multitudes,  and  con- 
sequently observe  good  order.  Theft  is  very  rare  among  them. 
Megasthenes,  who  was  in  the  camp  of  Sandracottus,  which  con- 
sisted of  400,000  men,  did  not  witness  on  any  day  theft  re- 
ported, which  exceeded  the  sum  of  two  hundred  drachmae, 
and  this  among  a  people  who  have  no  written  laws,  who  are 
ignorant  even  of  writing,  and  regulate  everything  by  memory." 
(We  shall  soon  see  that  Megasthenes  was  mistaken  ;  Sanscrit  lit- 
erature at  that  very  time  was  most  flourishing).  "  They  are,  how- 
ever, happy  on  account  of  their  simple  manners  and  frugal  ways 


120  GEXTILISM. 

of  life.  They  never  drink  wine  but  at  sacrifices.*  Their  beve- 
rage is  made  from  rice  instead  of  barley,  and  their  food  consists 
for  the  most  part  of  rice  pottage.  The  simplicity  of  their  laws 
appears  from  their  not  having  many  law-suits.  They  have  no 
suits  respecting  pledges  and  deposits,  nor  do  they  require  wit- 
nesses or  seals,  but  confide  in  one  another.  Their  houses  and 
property  are  unguarded.  These  things  denote  temperance  and 
sobriety." 

If  such  was  the  aspect  of  Hindostan  three  or  four  centuries 
before  Christ,  what  must  it  have  been  in  those  early  ages  of  the 
Yedas  and  the  laws  of  Menu  ?  For  all  that  country  the  de- 
generacy of  man,  and  of  human  institutions,  is  more  visible 
probably  than  in  any  other  known  region  of  the  globe.  In 
this  age  something  remains  yet  of  those  primitive  manners ;  but 
how  much  allied  with  vices  then  unknown,  chiefly  with  respect 
to  purity  of  morals  and  chastity  ?  Nothing  can  show  better 
the  advanced  state  of  morality — that  is,  its  real  and  genuine 
purity — than  the  various  enactments  of  the  code  of  Menu  on 
marriage,  and  the  situation  of  woman  in  the  family.  An  ab- 
stract of  them,  put  in  order  and  published,  would  be  redolent 
of  the  golden  age  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs,  and  show  at  once 
how  mankind  has  truly  degenerated  from  the  primeval  state  of 
society.  We  can  merely  quote  a  few  (chap,  ix.,  45) :  "  Then 
only  is  man  perfect,  when  he  consists  of  three  persons  united, 
his  wife,  himself,  and  his  son ;  and  thus  have  learned  Brahmins 
announced  this  maxim :  '  The  husband  is  even  one  person  with 
his  wife ;' "  (and  46) :  "  Neither  by  sale  nor  desertion  can  a  wife 
be  released  from  her  husband  ;  thus  we  fully  acknowledge  the 

*  The  wine  of  which  Megasthenes  speaks  is  the  "horaa,"  oi*  "soma," 
made  of  fermented  rice,  not  of  barley;  the  Vedas  speak  often  of  it,  and 
call  it  sometimes  vinas,  vinum,  although  not  made  from  the  grape;  but 
the  sacred  character  these  old  and  venerable  books  give  to  it,  forbid  alto- 
gether the  supposition  which  many  modern  writers  on  Hindooism  in- 
dulge in  on  the  subject.  To  listen  to  them  one  might  imagine  that  there 
was  uo  sacrifice  in  Hindostau  without  the  grossest  intoxication ;  and  the 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  121 

law  enacted  of  old  by  the  Lord  of  creatures."  Had  they  read 
the  book  which  says  :  erunt  duo  in  came  una  f 

The  code  said,  it  is  true  (chap,  vi.,  148) :  "  In  childhood 
must  a  female  be  dependent  on  her  father ;  in  youth,  on  her 
husband  ;  her  lord  being  dead,  on  her  sons."  And  this 
last  provision  of  the  law  contained  a  germ  of  wrong  which 
produced  in  Hindostan  that  frightful  state  of  oppression 
under  which  women  live.  But  in  those  primitive  times  was 
the  woman  a  slave  ?  was  the  simple  girl  a  slave  ?  read  (chap. 
ix.,  88) :  "  To  an  excellent  and  handsome  youth  of  the  same 
class,  let  every  man  give  his  daughter  in  marriage  according 
to  law."  (89) :  "  But  it  is  better  that  the  damsel,  though 
marriageable,  should  stay  at  home  till  her  death,  than  that 
he  should  ever  give  her  to  a  bridegroom  void  of  excellent 
qualities."  (90) :  "  Three  years  let  a  damsel  wait  though  she 
is  marriageable ;  but  after  that  term,  let  her  choose  for  herself 
a  bridegroom  of  equal  rank."  (91):  "If,  not  being  given  in 
marriage,  she  choose  her  bridegroom,  neither  she,  nor  the  youth 
chosen,  commits  any  offence." 

Then  follow  many  enactments  full  of  the  true  sense  of  right 
and  propriety,  and  which  forbid  any  man  to  sell  his  daughter, 
under  the  pretext  of  gratuity :  "  Since  a  father,"  says  the  law, 
"  who  takes  a  fee  on  that  occasion  tacitly  sells  his  daughter." 
(100) :  "  Never,  even  in  former  creations,  have  we  heard  the 
virtuous  approve  the  tacit  sale  of  a  daughter  for  a  price,  under 
the  name  of  a  nuptial  gratuity."  (101) :  "  Let  mutual  fidelity 
continue  til  death :  this,  in  few  words,  may  be  considered  as 
the  supreme  law  between  husband  and  wife." 

excesses  of  the  Scandinavians  in  their  religious  festivals  appear  a  mere 
copy  of  those  of  the  Hindoos.  Nothing  more  untrue  and  more  in  disac- 
cord with  all  we  know  of  former  India  could  be  imagined,  and  the  long 
quotation  from  Megasthenes  in  the  fifteenth  chapter  of  Strabo's  Geogra- 
phy, is  a  sufficient  refutation  of  it.  What  he  says  of  the  Brahmins  ought 
to  be  read  attentively. 


122  GENTILISM. 

Read,  again,  the  following,  and  say  if  there  can  be  a 
brighter  picture  of  a  household  even  in  Christian  countries? 
(Chap,  v.,  149) :  "  Never  let  the  wife  wish  to  separate  herself 
from  her  father,  her  husband,  or  her  sons :  for,  by  a  separation 
from  them  she  exposes  both  families  to  contempt."  (150)  : 
"  She  must  always  live  with  a  cheerful  temper,  with  good  man- 
agement in  the  affairs  of  the  house,  with  great  care  of  the 
household  furniture,  and  with  a  frugal  hand  in  all  her  expenses." 
(151) :  "  Him  to  whom  her  father  has  given  her,  or  her  bro- 
ther with  the  paternal  assent,  let  her  obsequiously  honor  while 
he  lives ;  and  when  he  dies,  let  her  never  forget  him." 

There  is  something  so  pure,  so  elevated,  so  truly  refined  in 
many . passages  of  that  venerable  legislation,  that  some  modern 
writers  have  pretended  that  it  was  never  enforced ;  and  that  its 
author  merely  intended  to  publish  a  Utopia,  as  the  Republic  of 
Plato.  Unfortunately  for  that  opinion,  the  Hindoos  have 
always  taken  the  book  to  be  a  serious  production,  and  a  real 
law  to  which  the  nation  has  owned  obedience  for  many  ages. 
If,  gradually,  the  primitive  purity  with  which  it  is  invested 
grew  dim,  and  was  replaced  by  a  corrupt  gloss,  which  led  to 
the  mass  of  depravity  which  disgraces  modern  Hindostan,  it  is 
only  a  new  proof  that  the  doctrine  of  the  indefinite  perfectibil- 
ity of  mankind  is  a  mere  delusion,  and  that  in  general  the  pro- 
gress since  the  beginning  has  been  backward. 

But  we  have  not  yet  done  with  this  code.  The  marital  relations 
as  expressed  in  it,  are  those  of  a  truly  moral  and  chaste  people, 
and  would  scarcely  be  understood  in  the  present  age.  We  will 
not  recite  the  texts  imposing  the  various  times  of  conjugal  ab- 
stinence, which  in  our  days  would  appear  truly  impracticable 
and  impossible  ;  but  we  must  quote  a  few  passages  calculated 
to  give  us  a  true  idea  of  the  real  purity  and  refinement  of  patri- 
archal times.  (Chap,  iv.,  43) :  "  Let  the  husband  neither  eat  with 
his  wife,  nor  look  to  her  eating,  nor  sneezing,  or  yawning,  or 
sitting  carelessly  at  her  ease."  (44) :  "  Nor  let  a  Brahmin 


ABORIGINAL    EELIGION    IN    HIND  0  STAN.  123 

behold  her  setting  off  her  eyes  with  black  powder,  or  scenting 
herself  with  essences,  or  bringing  forth  a  child.  (Chap,  ix.,  77) : 
"  For  a  whole  year  let  a  husband  bear  with  his  wife  who  treats 
him  with  aversion  ;  but  after  a  year  let  him  deprive  her  of  her 
separate  property,  and  cease  to  cohabit  with  her." 

One  particular  feature,  common  to  Hindostan,  and  to  other 
patriarchal  countries,  we  must  not  pass  by  without  notice ;  we 
mean  polygamy,  which  the  law  of  Menu  permitted  within  cer- 
tain limits.  But  we  prefer  to  quote  a  few  judicious  remarks 
of  Heeren  on  the  subject :  "  The  world  of  India,  both  as  it 
exists  in  the  fanciful  descriptions  of  poetry,  as  well  as  in  the 
sober  realities  of  actual  life,  presents  us  with  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  characteristic  traits  to  show  that  monogamy  is  the  prev- 
alent custom From  all'  attending  circumstances  we 

may  reasonably  conclude  that  polygamy  among  the  princes  and 
great  men  was  the  consequence  of  luxury  and  fashion  ;  but 
that  in  general,  wherever  it  existed  among  the  higher  classes, 
it  was  principally  founded  on  the  necessity  of  preserving  fam- 
ilies ;  and,  moreover,  on  the  religious  precept  which  allowed  a 
man  to  marry  one  or  more  additional  wives,  on  account  of  the 
sterility  of  the  first.  The  members  of  the  fourth  caste,  the 
Sudras,  were  only  permitted,  to  have  one  wife,  taken  exclu- 
sively from  their  own  class."  Is  not  this  a  common  feature  in 
the  patriarchal  period  ? 

But  besides  the  remarkable  spectacle  of  purity  offered  by 
the  primitive  Hindoo  code  with  respect  to  conjugal  relations, 
there  are  other  prescriptions  which  concern  unmarried  people, 
and  show  a  state  of  morals  almost  unknown  on  earth,  except  at 
the  very  origin  of  human  society.  We  will  quote  only  a  text 
or  two.  (Chap,  ii.,  212) :  "  A  student  must  not  greet  a  young 
wife  of  his  preceptor,  even  by  the  ceremony  of  touching  her 
feet,  if  he  have  completed  his  twentieth  year,  or  can  distin- 
guish virtue  from  vice."  This  text  alone  surpasses  our  concep- 
tion of  human  native  purity.  But  it  is  clear,  and  it  means 


124  GENTILISM. 

that  in  those  primitive  ages,  in  the  burning  climate  of  Hindo- 
stan,  the  age  of  twenty-one  years  was  usually  reached  before  the 
time  of  moral  danger  from  female  seduction  arrived.  But  if 
the  period  of  safety  from  temptation  extended  so  far,  let  the 
reader  ponder  on'  the  preservatives  recommended  to  men  of 
mature  age  in  the  following  (215) :  "  Let  not  a  man  sit  in  a 
sequestered  place  with  his  nearest  female  relations  :  the  assem- 
blage of  corporeal  organs  is  powerful  enough  to  snatch  wisdom 
from  the  wise." 

The  previous  details  suffice  to  give  an  idea  of  the  exalted 
type  of  virtue  presented  by  our  fallen  humanity  in  those  dis- 
tant times,  so  near  the  origin  of  mankind  ;  a  virtue  which,  on  the 
hypothesis  of  the  evolutionists,  would  be  impossible,  on  account 
of  the  imagined  barbarism  of  our  primeval  state,  but  natural 
enough  to  those  who  have  been  informed  by  revelation.  The 
reader  will  now  not  be  surprised  to  learn  that  doctrines  we're 
promulgated  and  firmly  believed  in  at  the  same  epoch,  which 
far  transcend  all  the  most  solemn  teaching  of  the  greatest  phi- 
losophers who  flourished  in  the  following  ages ;  and  which  yield 
only  to  the  sublime  and  exquisitely  refined  teachings  of  In- 
carnate Wisdom,  who,  through  human  lips,  revealed  a  code 
of  morality  more  exalted  and  more  explicit  than  those  glorious 
strains  of  human  intellectual  harmony.  The  pure  monotheism 
of  the  old  inhabitants  of  Hindostan  will  appear  consequently 
in  agreement  with  the  whole  domestic  and  social  condition  of 
the  people.  The  texts  are  known  now,  and  their  meaning  is 
no  more  problematical.  "When  Sir  William  Jones  first  an- 
nounced the  fact  to  Europe,  it  was  considered  an  exaggeration, 
and  attributed  to  his  sanguine  and  benevolent  nature.  The 
latest  discoveries  have  proved  that  the  great  and  good  founder 
of  the  Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta  was  not  mistaken. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  125 


Y. 


We  find  the  following  passage  and  reflections  in  Heeren's 
Asiatic  Nat.  11,  p.  139 :  "  As  the  Yedas,  like  the  Zend-Avesta, 
are  for  the  most  part  conversant  about  ceremonial  laws,  they 
imply  consequently  the  existence  of  a  certain  form  of  religious 
worship,  which,  being  subject  to  the  observance  of  peculiar  rites 
and  invocations,  would  of  course  be  confided  to  a  sacerdotal 
caste.  Now  the  worship  in  question  concerns  a  religious  sys- 
tem, which,  according  to  the  unanimous  opinion  of  all  those 
who  have  studied  the  subject,  has  for  its  foundation  the  belief 
in  one  God."  And  in  a  note  he  refers  to  Asiatic  Researches, 
vol.  viii.,  p.  396,  adding  the  following  phrase  :  "  Sir  "W.  Jones, 
Father  Paulino,  and  the  reports  of  the  Danish  missionaries,  all 
agree  on  this  point,  which  is  further  confirmed  by  numerous 
passages  in  the  Upanishads."  Since  Heeren's  time  a  far  more 
extensive  study  of  the  Indian  "  sacred  "  books  has  raised  his 
assertion  to  what  we  may  call  the  height  of  demonstration ;  and 
Colebrooke,  Haug,  Spiegel,  as  well  as  Max  Miiller,  have  made 
it  a  truth  which  cannot  be  now  contested,  that  the  Yedas,  as 
well  as  the  Zend-Avesta,  contain  the  doctrine  of  plain  and  pure 
monotheism.  This  last  celebrated  writer,  particularly,  has 
spoken  eloquently  and  emphatically  of  it  in  his  lectures  "  On 
the  Science  of  Religion,"  to  which  later  on  we  shall  allude. 

To  show  the  importance  of  this  concession,  we  have  only  to 
bring  it  in  juxtaposition  with  the  remarks  of  the  Gottingen 
Professor  at  the  beginning  of  his  first  chapter  on  Indians: 
"  The  historians  who  have  inquired  into  the  religion  and  learn- 
ing of  the  East,  have  almost  always  been  obliged  to  revert  to 
India  for  information  in  their  researches.  That  distant  coun- 
try, however,  has  at  no  former  period  attracted  the  attention  of 
Europeans  in  these  particulars,  so  much  as  at  the  present  day.  <  J 
The  learned  of  Great  Britain  now  flatter  themselves  that  they 


1 26  GEXTILISM. 

have  at  length  discovered  the  sources  from  which,  not  only  the 
rest  of  Asia,  but  the  whole  Western  World,  derived  their 
knowledge  and  their  religion." 

Our  whole  thesis,  therefore,  seems  to  be  thus  already  granted, 
at  least  in  a  general  way ;  and  we  might  almost  conclude  at 
present,  that  the  religion  of  the  ancient  world  was  pure  mono- 
theism. 

'For,  this  would  seem,  at  first  sight,  to  settle  the  question  of  the 
pure  monotheism  of  the  earliest  civilized  communities  ;  of  the 
Hindoos,  at  all  events  ;  and  to  emancipate  us  from  the  task  of 
further  elucidating  the  subject. 

But  so  decided  is  the  sceptical  attitude  adopted,  alas !  by  a 
large  portion  of  the  literary,  and,  at  times,  even  of  the  learned 
world,  that  were  we  to  stop  here,  we  might  be  condem-ned  tp 
listen  to  a  remonstrance  against  our  conclusion,  drawn  from  a 
kind  of  ambiguity  in  the  very  word  "  monotheism,"  which  many 
would  now  make  synonymous  with  real  pantheism,  or  rather 
with  the  absorption  of  all  beings  in  one ;  and  this  they  pretend 
is  tne  real  doctrine  of  the  Hindoo  Yedas.  We  must,  there- 
fore, enter  into  some  discussion  on  those  primitive  books.  And, 
although  *we  cannot  pretend  to  solve  the  difficulty  with  respect 
to  the  grammatical  meaning,  since  we  know  nothing  of  the  San- 
scrit, old  or  recent,  yet  we  imagine  that  we  can  communicate  to 
our  readers  a  conviction  which  is  firmly  established  in  our  own 
mind,  from  numerous  passages  whose  strict  meaning  has  now 
been  settled  by  competent  writers,  that  any  such  remonstrance 
has  no  foundation  in  fact ;  and  that  the  numerous  other  pas- 
sages of  a  different  nature,  in  which  the  language  involves 
really  the  doctrine  of  absorption  in  Brahma,  can  be  shown  in 
truth  to  strengthen  our  very  position,  by  indicating  the  first  of 
those  downward  steps,  from  pure  doctrine  to  the  reverse, 
which,  as  we  said  previously,  is  clearly  demonstrable  'in  the 
case  of  Hindostan.  Moreover,  we  expect  to  be  able  to  show 
that  the  transition  from  truth  to  error  was  natural  and  so  grad- 


ABOKIGLS'AL    KELIGION    IN    HIXDOSTAIT.  127 

ual  as  to  afford  additional  confirmatory  evidence  of  the  posi- 
tion we  are  endeavoring  to  maintain. 

We  cannot  enter  into  a  lengthy  description  of  the  cele- 
brated books  known  as  the  Yedas.  The  reader  can  consult  the 
more  recent  authors  on  the  subject.  Enough  is  it  for  us  to  say 
that  they  are  of  a  very  high  antiquity,  possibly,  and  even  prob- 
ably, older  than  the  Pentateuch  of  Moses  ;  that  the  three  first, 
known  as  the  Rig,  the  Yajur,  and  the  Saman -Yedas,  are 
admitted  to  be  "  canonical,"  if  we  may  use  the  expression ;  and 
that  the  fourth — the  Atharvan-Yeda — contains,  certainly,  mat- 
ter unacceptable  to  a  strict  exegetist,  although  a  great  part  of 
it  cannot  give  rise  to  any  objection.  Each  of  them  may  be 
divided  into  three  parts,  which,  however,  often  encroach  upon 
one  another — the  mantras,  the  brahmanas,  and  the  upanishads. 
The  first  consist  of  prayers  and  solemn  rites  ;  the  second  con- 
tain precepts  chiefly,  but  often  accompanied  with  hymns  and 
invocations ;  the  last,  met  with  sometimes  among  the  mantras 
and  the  brahmanas,  are  in  greater  number  placed  at  the  end 
of  each  Yeda,  and  consist  of  treatises,  dialogues,  and  high  con- 
siderations on  the  nature  of  God,  on  creation,  on  the  world, 
on  the  soul  of  man,  on  the  most  elevated  subjects  of  religious 
philosophy.  It  is  chiefly  in  the  upanishads  that  is  to  be  found 
the  purest  doctrine  of  monotheism  and  natural  religion.  Some- 
times, also,  the  errors — not  found,  however,  in  the  Rig-Yeda — 
of  transmigration,  etc.,  and  chiefly  of  the  final  absorption  of  the 
soul,  even  of  the  whole  universe,  in  God,  lead  evidently  to 
open  heresy,  and  to  that  broad  pantheism  which  was  advo- 
cated later  by  Hindoo  philosophers,  who  carried  it  at  length 
to  atheism  and  annihilation,  or,  as  it  is  called,  the  nirvana. 

But  before  proceeding  to  point  out  the  various  steps  down- 
wards of  the  religious  and  philosophical  systems  of  Ilindostan, 
and  how  the  grossest  subsequent  errors  came  from  an  exag- 
geration of  truth,  natural  to  a  nature  so  poetical  as  was  that  of 

the  Hindoos, — whence,  it  is  evident,  our  thesis  that  the  primitive 
10 


128  GENTILISM. 

pure  monotheistic  doetrine  was  the  starting-point  from  which 
were  evolved  the  most  erroneous  systems  of  religion  or  philos- 
ophy will  receive  abundant  support,  we  must  pursue  a  brief 
inquiry  into  the  authenticity  and  antiquity  of  the  upanishads 
as  a  part  of  the  Vedas.  Indeed,  the  whole  question  would 
seem  to  hinge  on  this  fact.  So  incontestible  are  the  proofs  in 
them,  of  a  truly  Christian  monotheism,  that  those,  too  many, 
alas !  modern  writers,  who  will  persist  in  asserting,  against 
all  the  proofs,  that  the  human  race,  started  from  sheer  barba- 
rism, and  from  the  lowest  conceivable  doctrinal  points,  have 
pretended,  lately,  that  the  upanishads  are  very  much  later  in 
point  of  time  than  the  other  portions  of  the  Yedas,  and  were, 
in  fact,  the  result  of  long  studies  on  the  highest  subjects  of 
philosophy.  We,  on  the  contrary,  maintain  that  the  purer 
and  the  higher  is  the  doctrine,  the  older  it  is  on  that  very 
account ;  that  the  noblest  ideas  are  precisely  those  which  man- 
kind received  and  held  at  first ;  that  all  errors,  all  false  beliefs 
and  absurdities,  were  the  strange  progress  made  by  the  human 
mind  reflecting  on  revealed  truth  as  communicated  to  it  at 
first ;  finally,  that,  as  the  grossest  immorality,  the  absurdities 
the  most  revolting,  and  an  almost  incredible  perversity,  con- 
stitute, confessedly,  in  our  days,  the  pagan  moral  atmosphere 
of  Hindostan ;  whatever  in  the  doctrine  of  the  old  books  of  the 
country  is  acceptable  to  a  Christian,  as  noble,  grand,  just,  and 
true,  must  be  placed  nearest  to  the  origin  of  the  nation. 

First,  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to  place,  in  point  of  time, 
the  upanishads,  at  least  those  admitted  as  genuine  and  ancient, 
after  the  mantras  and  brahmanas.  No  Hindoo  Brahmin  would 
do  so.  They  would  all  alike  say,  that  both  are  Yedic,  and  be- 
long to  the  same  epoch.  They  are  certainly  written  in  the  same 
style,  that  noble  archaic,  rich,  and  abundant  Sanscrit,  so  differ- 
ent from  that  of  the  great  poems  of  Ramayana,  and  Mahabha- 
rata,  chiefly  from  that  of  the  Puranas,  and  above  all  from  the 
grovelling  and  detestable  Tantras,  the  most  modern  of  all. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  129 

Since  there  is  perfect  sameness  of  style  in  the  whole  of  the 
three  first  Yedas,  since  the  upanishads  are  often  intermixed 
with  the  mantras  and  brahmanas,  since  the  Hindoo  nation 
has  always  accepted  them  as  having  the  same  authority  and 
<]'n-'t!\e  origin,  what  rational  pretext  can  there  be  for  endeav- 
oring to  make  a  distinction  where,  in  point  of  fact,  there  is 
none ;  what  motive  can  there  be  but  to  suit  preconceived  opin- 
ions, and  to  force  an  argument  in  behalf  of  what  is  precisely  in 
question,  namely :  the  supposed  primitive  low  state  of  man  ? 
What  but  a  perverse  resolve  to  obliterate,  so  far  as  it  is  in 
their  power  to  do,  the  undeniable  testimony  supplied  by  con- 
temporary authoritative  records  to  the  nobleness  of  mind,  eleva- 
tion of  thought,  true  civilization,  and  high  religious  and  philo- 
sophical thought,  which  we  see  surrounding  with  their  benedic- 
tions the  very  cradle  of  mankind  ? 

Max  Miiller,  in  his  "  History  of  Sanscrit  Literature,"  makes  a 
marked  distinction  between  the  new  and  the  old  Upanishads. 
He  says  that  "new  Upanishads  were  always  composed  by  new 
sects."  ....  The  old  and  genuine  ones  did  not  pretend  to  give 
more  than  "  guesses  at  truth  "  ;  and  "  when  in  course  of  time 
they  became  invested  with  an  inspired  character,  the  text  al- 
Iow3d  great  latitude  to  those  who  professed  to  be  believers  in 
their  revelation."  Consequently,  "not  only  the  Yedanta  phi- 
losophers, but  likewise  the  Sankhya,  the  Nyaya,  and  the  Yoga 
teachers  all  pretend  to  find  in  the.  Upanishads  some  warranty 
for  their  tenets,  however  antagonistic  in  their  bearings."  But 
this  is  said  only  of  comparatively  modern  compositions. 

The  truly  old  and  genuine  ones  are  to  be  spoken  of  very  dif- 
ferently. Rammohun  Hoy,  according  to  Max  Miiller,  asserted 
that,  "  The  adoration  of  the  Supreme  Being  is  exclusively  pre- 
scribed by  the  Upanishads,  or  ih&  principal  part  of  the  Yedas, 
and  also  by  the  Yedanta."  Every  one  knows  the  authority  of 
the  celebrated  Rammohun  Roy  on  the  subject.  Himself  a 
Hindoo,  no  one,  perhaps,  in  modern  times  has  ever  known  so 


130  GEXTILISM. 

well  the  language  and  the  true  doctrine  of  his  country  in  the 
past. 

But  who  were  the  composers  of  those  remarkable  books,  the 
Vedas  ?  "Were  they,  from  the  beginning,  arranged  as  they  are 
in  the  eleven  very  large  volumes  which  now  form  the  collec- 
tion ?  A  word  first  on  this  second  question:  "The  Vedas," 
says  Heeren,  "  must  evidently  have  required  the  labors  of  some 
compiler  who  incorporated  the  detached  pieces  into  one  work. 
And  in  effect,  Hindoo  tradition  has  assigned  the  task  to  Yyasa, 
whose  age  goes  far  back  into  the  fabulous  periods.  Yyasa, 
however,  is  nothing  more  than  a  common  term  applicable  to 
any  compiler  in  general ;  we  are  therefore  still  in  the  dark.  .  .  . 
There  is,  nevertheless,  the  less  reason  to  be  surprised  at  this 
uncertainty;  the  same  is  the  case  with  the  books  of  Moses. 
They  have  been  preserved  to  our  times,  but  the  true  account  of 
their  origin," — Heeren  should  have  said  of  their  "compila- 
tion " — "  is  involved  in  the  deepest  obscurity." 

But  who  were  the  original  "composers"  of  these  books? 
Each  particular  piece,  prayer,  hymn,  precept,  upanishad,  bears 
in  the  compilation  the  name  of  its  author ;  and  it  is  especially 
recommended  to  the  officiating  Brahmin  not  to  forget  this  name 
when  using  the  text  in  any  sacred  rite.  The  whole  is  revealed 
in  the  opinion  of  the  Hindoos,  and  comes  from  God.  Thus 
every  author  of  any  particular  piece  is,  according  to  that  opin- 
•ion,  an  inspired  writer.  No  Christian,  of  course,  can  share  in 
this  belief.  Yet  it  is  well  to  mention  it,  in  order  to  show  that 
no  discrimination  can  be  made  by  any  modern  critic  as  against 
the  upanishads,  in  particular.  But  if  the  actual  name  of  every 
one  of  those  writers  can  very  well  be  matter  of  doubt,  there  is, 
however,  a  general  attribute  given  to  many  of  them  by  all 
Brahmins,  which  it  is  as  well  to  note.  The  hymns  and  prayers 
of  the  mantras,  comprised  in  ten  thousand  verses  or  stanzas, 
are  put  into  the  mouths  of  holy  men — Rishis — mentioned  by 
name.  And  says  Heeren :  "  Tli3  supponed  composers  are  very 


ABORIGINAL    HELIGIO2T    IN    HLJTDOSTAN.  131 

frequently  Rishis  themselves,  and  count,  among  their  number, 
Brahmins,  and  sometimes  even  royal  personages."  This  re- 
mark of  the  Gottingen  Professor  is  worthy  of  attention.  The 
mention  of  Brahmins  is  here  superfluous,  as  in  Hindostan, 
chiefly  at  the  origin,  all  great  and  holy  men  belonged  to  that 
caste.  But  it  is,  in  our  opinion,  extremely  important  to  know 
that  in  general  the  authors  of  the  various  parts  of  the  Yedas 
were  holy  men — Rishis — and  likewise  powerful  men,  "  some- 
times even  royal  personages."  We  cannot  have  a  better  de- 
scription of  a  "  patriarch  "  in  olden  time  than  a  "  Rishi  "  or  holy 
man  of  high  standing,  rich  and  powerful,  and  of  a  kingly  race. 
Thus  were  surely  Abraham  in  Mesopotamia,  Melchisedech  in 
the  land  of  Canaan,  and  Job  in  the  land  of  Hus.  The  "inspi- 
ration "  of  these  three  great  men  was  indubitable,  and  we  can- 
not, we  need  scarcely  remark,  place  the  Hindoo  Rishis  on  the 
same  elevated  plane.  But  how  many  other  patriarchs  in  the 
times  of  Abraham  and  Job  were  holy  and  powerful  men  with- 
out being  "  inspired  ?"  And  what  should  prevent  us  from 
placing  the  Hindoo  Rishis  in  the  same  category  ?  We  consider 
it,  therefore,  as  extremely  probable  that  the  authors  of  the 
Vedas  were  true  patriarchs  of  Central  Asia,  who  left  to  their 
posterity  the  noble  doctrine  of  which  we  propose  to  give  a 
short  sketch.  And  what  confirms  us  in  our  opinion  is,  that 
invariably  the  laws  of  Menu,  in  texts  which  we  have  had  no 
occasion  to  quote,  recommend  to  the  true  Brahmin,  together 
with  high  piety  and  entire  devotion  to  God,  together  even  with 
simplicity  of  manners  and  frugality  of  life,  a  great  care  of  their  - 
wealth,  attachment  to  it,  and  a  real  solicitude  in  increasing  it 
by  all  lawful  means.  Wealth,  in  the  institutes  of  Menu,  is  a 
precious  thing,  almost  a  virtue ;  its  loss  a  great  evil ;  and  yet 
a  luxurious  life  is  strictly  forbidden,  and  simplicity  of  diet  and 
apparel  highly  recommended.  We  would  like  to  know  where 
all  this  can  be  found  combined  more  preeminently  than*  in  the 
patriarchs  of  ihe  cast  of  Abraham,  of  Jacob,  of  Job  ? 


132  GE^TILISM. 

After  sucli  testimony  as  this,  lie  must  be  a  bold  man,  and 
something  more  than  bold,  who  would  venture  to  dispute  that 
the  Yedas  were  composed  before  idolatry  prevailed.  The  cele- 
brated Orientalist,  Henry  Thomas  Colebrooke,  was,  we  think, 
the  first  to  make  the  observation  that  the  Vedas  exhibit  no  traces 
whatever  of  the  sects  of  Siva  and  Vishnu ;  "  Nowhere,"  he  says, 
"  excepting  only  in  the  latter  sections  of  the  Atharvan-Veda — 
the  fourth  Yeda — which  must,  therefore,  be  regarded  as  spu- 
rious, have  I  been  able  to  discover  the  slightest  vestige  of  the 
worship  of  Rama  and  of  Krishna,  considered  as  incarnations  of 
Vishnu."  In  fact,  the  "  Trimourti,"  which  has  so  often  been 
adduced  as  an  evidence  that  the  Hindoos  had  some  knowledge 
of  the  Christian  Trinity,  but  which  was  in  truth  one  of  the 
most  prolific  sources  of  the  subsequent  idolatry,  makes  its  ap- 
pearance long  after  the  epoch  of  the  Vedas.  There  is  no  men- 
tion in  them  of  any  real  God  but  the  "  Supreme  Spirit, 
which  moves  at  pleasure,  but  in  .itself  is  immovable ;  distant 
from  us,  yet  very  near  us ;  pervading  this  whole  system  of 
worlds,  yet  infinitely  beyond  it." 

If  Siva  and  Vishnu,  as  mythological  personages,  are  not  men- 
tioned in  the  Vedas,  much  less  can  the  reader  find  in  them  that 
crowd  of  gods  whose  ridiculous  history  form  what  is  called  the 
mythology  of  Hindostan.  And,  as  all  the  monuments  of  former 
times  in  the  country,  even  those  of  the  highest  antiquity  in  point 
of  art,  are  literally  covered  with  the  various  episodes  related  in 
the  long  epic  poems  sculptured  in  prominent  relief  on  the  re- 
maining walls  of  these  edifices,  it  follows  strictly  that  the  Vedas 
are  more  ancient  than  the  oldest  of  them.  ~No  antiquary  has 
yet  found  in  Hindostan  buildings  which  can  be  referred  to 
Vedic  times.  This  remark  has  not  been  sufficiently  insisted 
upon.  And  nothing,  in  our  opinion,  is  more  natural,  and  more 
in  the  order  of  things.  There  can  be  no  relics  of  that  primeval 
period,  because  the  "  patriarchs  "  never  could  attempt  to  build 
Buch  piles  as  those  of  a  subsequent  epoch.  They-  lived  mostly 


ABOKIGLSAL    RELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAtf.  133 

under  tents  ;  a  rude  stone  altar  was  the  place-  chosen  for  sacri- 
fice ;  and  the  smoke  of  the  holocaust  rose  upwards  in  the  blue 
atmosphere,  and  never  blackened  the  interior  walls  of  any  gigan- 
tic edifice. 

After  these  preliminary  observations,  we  arrive  now  at  the 
doctrine  of  those  ancient  days,  as  far  as  it  can  be  ascertained. 


VL 


The  mantras  of  the  Yeds  make  often  mention  of  gods  and 
deities,  as  they  are  called  in  our  translations,  and  it  is  impor- 
tant to  know  what  is  really  meant  by  such  expressions  as  these. 
It  seems  that  the  word  thus  interpreted  is  devatd  in  Sanscrit ; 
and  its  meaning,  in  comparatively  modem  language,  may  be, 
indeed,  deity  or  god.  But  we  protest  against  giving  it  this  in- 
terpretation in  the  Case  of  the  first  Vedas.  It  is  beyond  dis- 
pute, that  in  these  old  books,  anything  either  consecrated  or 
endowed  with  some  native  dignity,  chiefly  in  the  matter  of  re- 
ligious rites,  is  called  devata.  Thus  a  horse  led  to  be  sacrificed, 
a  weapon  on  which  the  help  of  heaven  is  invoked,  even  a  rem- 
edy against  impure  dreams,  considered  justly  as  a  great  evil  in 
the  Menu  code,  as  well  as  many  other  sacred  or  consecrated 
objects,  are  called  devatas ;  and  we  by  no  means  deny  that 
some  help,  temporal  or,  spiritual,  was  expected  from  them. 

We  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  surprised  that  fndra,  or  the 
blue  vault  of  heaven  ;  Agni,  or  the  elementary  fire,  chiefly 
that  of  lightning ;  Culiu^  or  the  beautiful  western  sky,  when 
the  new  crescent  of  the  moon  begins  to  appear,  etc.,  etc.,  are 
all  called  devatds,  and  addressed  with  devotion  by  the  highly 
imaginative  Hindoo.  The  primitive  inhabitants  of  that  extra- 
ordinary country  were  of  so  poetical  a  nature,  that  their  great- 
est geniuses  could  never  write  a  history  or  a  chronicle.  Their 
vivid  imagination  could  not  rest  satisfied  with  cold  and  stub- 


134  GE1STTILISM. 

born  facts,  no  more  than  with  a  precise  philosophical  lan- 
guage. 

It  is  true  the  Yedas  speak  of  oblations  and  sacrifices  to 
Indra,  to  Agni,  etc.  Were  not  these,  therefore,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  writers,  beings  of  a  divine  nature  ?  We  reply,  not  in 
the  sense  of  our  own  more  exact  way  of  expressing  ourselves, 
although  they  supposed  in  them  some  inexplicable  consecration. 
But  the  "  Institutes  of  Menu  "  appear  to  us  to  decide  the  ques- 
tion (Chap.  ii.  83) :  "  The  triliteral  monosyllable  (om  or  aum) 
is  an  emblem  of  the  Supreme  ;  the  suppressions  of  breath  with 
a  mind  fixed  on  God  are  the  highest  devotion,  but  nothing  is 
more  exalted  than  the  gayatri"  (84)  :  "  All  rites  ordained  in 
the  Veda,  oblations  to  fire  (or  Agni),  and  solemn  sacrifices,  pass 
away ;  but  that  which  passes  not  away  is  declared  to  be  the 
syllable  om  ;  since  it  is  a  symbol  of  God,  the  Lord  of  created 
beings."  (85)  :  "  The  act  of  repeating  his  Holy  Name  is  ten 
times  better  than  the  appointed  sacrifice,  etc."  (86) :  "  The 
four  domestic  sacraments,  accompanied  with  the  appointed 
sacrifice,  are  not  equal  all  together  to  a  sixteenth  part  of  the 
act  performed  by  a  repetition  of  the  gayatri." 

And  what  is  the  gayatri,  so  superior  to  all  invocations  of  the 
elements  for  help  ?  Here  is  the  translation  of  it  given  by  Sir 
William  Jones :  "  Let  tis  adore  the  supremacy  of  that  divine 
Sun,"  -  —  not  the  visible  luminary,  l>ut  —  "  the  Godhead  who 
illuminates  all,  who  recreates  all,  from  whom  all  proceed,  to 
whom  all  must  return,  whom  we  invoke  to  direct  our  under- 
standings aright  in  our  progress  towards  His  holy  seat."  This 
was  the  most  sacred  verse  of  the  "Vedas,  whose  recitation,  ac- 
cording to  the  code  of  Menu,  was  not  only  far  above  all  high 
expressions  of  awe  in  presence  of  the  elements,  but  was  to  pre- 
cede all  the  religious  acts  of  Brahmins.  How  could  they  have 
been  at  any  time  worshippers  of  the  forces  of  nature  when 
anteriorly,  and  at  the  same  time,  they  acknowledge  such  an 
infinitely  Superior  Being  ?  It  is  repeatedly  declared  in  the 


ABORIGINAL   KELIGIO2T    IN   HINDOSTAN.  135 

Menu  code  that  all  ceremonies  and  rites  are  nothing  compared 
to  the  adoration  of  the  SUPREME. 

As  well  might  we  say  that  the  Catholic  Church  teaches  the 
worship  of  the  elements,  because  in  her  liturgy  she  consecrates 
them,  and  addresses  them  afterwards  in  language  which  in 
some  way  approaches  to  Yedic  expressions.  If  some  of  the 
modern  critics  who  comment  on  the  Hindoo  religious  books, 
knew  how  the  Catholic  Church  speaks  of  water,  salt,  fire,  oil, 
and  wine,  they  might  be  prepared  to  understand  those  other 
literary  compositions,  and  they  would  not  try,  as  they  do,  to 
assign  to  them  an  interpretation  which  they  do  not  really  bear. 
Not  that  we  admit  a  perfect  identity  in  them,  nor  see  any  diffi- 
culty in  the  strange  forms  of  the  Kig-Veda.  The  mantras  led 
certainly  the  people  gradually  to  idolatry.  But  we  know  that 
a  primitive  religion  must  have  viewed  the  material  world  in  a 
very  different  manner  from  the  learned  man  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  And  we  think  that  what  astonishes  the  "  modern 
savant,"  namely,  the  confidence  reposed  in  the  help  expected 
from  mere  material  beings,  is  caused  by  his  ignorance  of  the 
natural  primitive  feeling  of  man  in  presence  of  a  wonderful 
world,  of  which  he  feels  that  he  was  made  to  be  the  master, 
and  yet  finds  that  he  is  often  the  slave. 

To  explain  our  meaning  more  clearly,  suppose  a  philosopher 
believing  himself  to  be  well  acquainted  with  what  he  calls  the 
laws  of  nature,  yet,  conscious  of  being  profoundly  ignorant  of 
the  Catholic  religion,  to  enter  by  chance,  on  Holy  Saturday,  an 
edifice  dedicated  by  the  Mother  Church,  and  to  read  carelessly 
from  a  book  lent  him  by  one  of  the  worshippers.  "What  would 
be  his  surprise  to  find,  in  the  office  of  the  day,  at  the  moment 
that  the  officiating  priest  touches  with  his  hand  the  water  of 
the  font  he  is  blessing,  the  following  words :  "  Sit  hceo  sancta 
et  innocens  creatura  " — namely,  the  water  contained  i%i  the  font 
— "  libera  ab  omni  impugnatoris  inoursu,  et  totius  neyuitioa 
purgata  discessu.  Sitfons  vivus,  aqua  regenerans^  undapuri- 


136  GEJSTILISM. 

cans,  ut  omnes  hoc  lavacro  salutifero  diluendi,  perfectoe  pur- 
gationis  indulgentiam  consequantur. . . ."  He  would  conclude 
that  the  Catholic  expects  his  moral  purification  from  mere  ma- 
terial water,  which  besides  is  openly  called  a  "  holy  and  inno- 
cent being."  Surely  this  philosopher  would  be  as  safe  in  his 
conclusion  as  the  critic  who,  from  the  "  oblation  to  fire  "  in  the 
Yedas,  is  perfectly  certain  that  the  primitive  Hindoo  "  wor- 
shipped the  elements."  Many  other  passages  of  the  Catholic 
liturgy,  chiefly  in  the  administration  of  baptism,  in  the  blessing 
of  the  holy  oils,  etc.,  etc.,  might  be  adduced  in  illustration  of 
what  few,  we  suspect,  will  be  found  willing  to  deny,  and 
brought  forward  to  illustrate  the  subject  under  consideration. 

We  hope  no  one,  in  our  days,  would  call  the  "  holy  water," 
the  "  blessed  salt,"  etc.,  used  in  Catholic  rites,  the  gods  of  the 
Catholic.  It  is  as  just  to  imagine  that  the  "  sacrificial  post,"  the 
"  cords,"  etc.,  used  in  Hindoo  worship,  were  really  the  gods  of 
the  Yedic  Hindoo  ;  yet  they  were  devatds. 

We  can  now  somewhat  understand  the  address  in  the  Rig- 
Veda  to  the  horse  led  for  sacrifice,  which,  as  a  modem  critic 
says,  is  invoked  by  the  worshipper  in  the  following  strain  :  "  Thy 
great  birth,  O  horse,  is  to  be  glorified  ;  whether  first  springing 
from  the  firmament  or  from  the  water,  inasmuch  as  thou  hast 
neighed  at  thy  birth ;  thou  hast  the  wings  of  the  falcon,  and 
the  limbs  of  the  deer.  Trita  harnessed  the  horse  which  was 
given  by  Yama,  Indra  first  mounted  him,  and  Gandharba  seized 
the  reins  ....  Thou,  horse,  art  Yama,  thou  art  Aditya,  thou 
art  Trita  by  a  mysterious  act ;  thou  art  associated  with  Soma." 
Job  in  describing  the  horse,'  was  not  so  mystical  as  the  com- 
poser of  this  piece  of  the  first  Yeda ;  but  any  one  acquainted 
with  Catholic  liturgy  has  really  the  key  for  the  interpretation 
of  this  passage ;  because  he  knows  that  in  high  religious  poetry, 
any  natural  element,  any  animal  even,  can  be  found  associated 
with  superior  beings,  and  with  a  whole  mystical  world  perfectly 
unknown  to  the  physicbt  of  modern  times. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  137 

And  tlie  "critics"  of  whom  we  speak  cannot  strengthen 
their  position  by  the  opinions  of  Hindoo  "  theologians,"  as  they 
call  them,  who  evidently  lived  many  ages  after  the  Vedas  were 
composed,  who  were,  moreover,  rank  idolaters,  and  could  no 
more  understand  those  old  and  venerable  books  than  the  mod- 
ern critics  themselves.  It  has  even  become  the  fashion  for 
Orientalists  of  our  age  to  address  themselves  in  India  to  pun- 
dits,  and  to  consider  their  interpretation  of  the  Yedas  as  a  safe 
one.  A  sincere  Christian  will  probably  better  understand  them 
than  an  idolatrous  pundit,  because  natural  religion  is  a  fun- 
damental part  of  the  Christian  religion,  not  of  modern  Hin- 
dooism. 

AVe  must  conclude  briefly  this  part  of  our  investigations,  by 
stating  that  all  the  labor  of  modern  writers,  to  explain  in  the 
Rig- Veda  the  evolution  of  Hindooism  from  the  worship  of 
elementary  powers,  by  trying  first  to  reconcile  it  with  the  idea 
of  one  Supreme  Being,  as  expressed  in  the  brahinana  part, 
and  then  by  emancipating  altogether  monotheism  from  the 
primitive  elementary  religion  in  the  upanishads,  is  perfectly 
thrown  away.  There  has  never  been  such  an  evolution.  The 
three  parts  of  every  Veda  stand  together.  And  nothing  is  more 
absolutely  certain,  nothing  more  completely  out  of  the  reach  of 
cavil,  than  that  antecedently  to  all  other  Hindoo  beliefs  what- 
soever, existed  the  belief  in  the  SUPREME  ;  since  all  the  ceremo- 
nies of  elementary  religion  even,  as  it  is  called  by  modern 
critics,  must  begin  by  the  solemn  profession  of  the  gayatri. 

We  are  now  prepared  to  listen  to  some  of  those  grand  voices 
of  antiquity  proclaiming  the  eternal  existence  of  the  INFINITE. 
It  is  called  Brahma !  But  Brahma  (neuter),  not  the  (male) 
Brahma  of  the  Trimourti — that  abomination  introduced  by  the 
poets  of  the  Epic  period. 

It  has  been  remarked  by  several  recent  writers  that,  in  the 
Hindoo  worship,  Brahma  has  scarcely  a  place  ;  and  that  Siva, 
Vishnu,  Ganesa,  etc,,  absorb  all  the  interest  of  the  worshipper. 


138  GENTILISM. 

"We  reply,  yes,  in  the  modern  Hindoo  religion.  "When  the 
fables  of  Siva,  and  later  those  of  Vishnu,  were  invented  by  the 
fertile  imagination  of  the  poets,  they  could  not  forget  at  once 
the  great  name  of  Brahma,  which  occupied  a  supreme  place  in 
the  primitive  religion  of  the  country.  They  retained  it,  there- 
fore ;  but  they  made  it  a  man.  Thus  the  male  Brahma  was 
invented  ;  and  henceforward  the  Hindoos  had  the  elements  of 
their  Trimourti.  But  instead  of  having  any  correspondence 
with  the  Holy  Trinity  of  the  Christian,  it  was  the  introduction 
of  pure  idolatry,  which  has  prevailed  since  that  time ;  and  it 
was  only  to  be  expected  that  the  new  monstrous  god,  the  male 
Brahma,  should  take  an  inferior  position  to  that  of  his  two 
new  brothers ;  an  inferior  position,  we  mean,  as  far  as  regards 
the  interest  taken  in  him  by  the  idolatrous  Hindoos.  The 
male  Brahma,  the  product  of  the  later  Vedic  times,  could  not 
compete  in  mythology  with  Siva  and  Vishnu,  whose  avatars, 
or  incarnations,  were  the  great  and  absorbing  subject  of  the 
then  new  Epic  poems.  He  therefore — the  male  Brahma — re- 
mained in  the  back-ground,  to  use  a  vulgar  expression ;  and  the 
adoration  of  the  more  modern  idolater  was  turned  chiefly  to 
Siva  and  Vishnu,  the  new  and  brilliant  divinities  invented  by 
poets,  whose  fertile  legends  could  fill  the  imagination  of  artists 
who  then  began  to  represent  their  history  on  the  walls  of 
majestic  edifices. 

But,  in  old  and  primitive  times,  Brahma  (neuter),  namely, 
the  Supreme,  the  Eternal  and  Infinite  Spirit,  was  the  chief  and 
all-absorbing  object  of  the  adoration  of  the  well-instructed 
Brahmin.  .Read  some  few  of  the  great  conceptions  transmit- 
ted, no  doubt,  from  the  origin  of  man,  through  the  first  Patri- 
archs or  E-ishis,  who  wrote  the  great  TJpanishads  of  the  yet  un- 
corrupted  Vedas. 

"  What  the  sun  and  light  are  to  this  visible  world,  that  is 
the  Supreme  Good  and  Truth  to  the  intellectual  and  invisible 
universe ;  and  as  our  corporeal  eyes  have  a  distinct  perception 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IX    HIXDOSTAN.  139 

of  objects  enlightened  by  the  sun,  thus  our  souls  acquire  sure 
knowledge,  by  meditating  on  the  light  of  truth  which  emanates 
from  the  Being  of  beings  ;  that  is  the  light  by  which  alone  our 
minds  can  be  directed  in  the  path  to  beatitude." 

"  Without  hand  or  foot  He  runs  rapidly,  and  grasps  firmly ; 
without  eyes  He  sees;  without  ears  He  hears  all j  He  knows 
whatever  can  be  known,  but  there  is  none  who  knows  Him ; 
Him,  the  wise  call  the  great,  Supreme,  pervading  Spirit." 
(Sir  William  Jones,  extracts  from  the  Vedas). 

Of  this  last  text,  says  the  same  authority,  Radhacant  has 
given  a  paraphrase :  "  Perfect  truth  ;  perfect  happiness  ;  with- 
out equal ;  immortal ;  absolute  unity ;  whom  neither  speech 
can  describe,  nor  mind  comprehend  ;  all-pervading  ;  all-tran- 
scending ;  delighted  with  His  own  boundless  intelligence  ;  not 
limited  by  space  or  time  ;  without  feet,  moving  swiftly ;  with- 
out hands,  grasping  all  worlds  ;  without  eyes,  all-surveying  ; 
without  ears,  all-hearing  ;  without  an  exterior  guide,  under- 
standing all ;  without  cause,  the  first  of  all  causes ;  all-ruling ; 
all-powerful ;  the  creator,  preserver,  transformer  of  all  things ; 
such  is  the  Great  One  ;  this  the  Yedas  declare."  Can  a  Chris- 
tian philosopher,  we  ask,  speak  more  correctly  ?  "Were  not  the 
Hindoos  at  first  monotheists  ? 

Sir  William  Jones  gives  yet  the  following,  as  extracted  from 
an  Upanishad  of  the  Yajur-Veda  :  "  Unveil,  O  Thou  who 
givest  sustenance  to  the  world,  that  face  of  the  true  Sun, 
now  hidden  by  a  vase  of  golden  light !  so  that  we  may  see  the 
truth,  and  know  our  whole  duty  !"  "  That  all-pervading  Spirit, 
which  gives  light  to  the  visible  sun,  even  the  same  in  kind  am 
I,  though  infinitely  distant  in  degree"  St.  Paul  said  later : 
Ipsius  genus  sumus.  "  Let  my  soul  return  to  the  immortal 
Spirit  of  God,  and  then  let  my  body,  which  ends  in  ashes,  re- 
turn to  dust !"  "  O  Spirit,  who  pervadest  fire,  lead  us  in  a 
straight  path  to  the  riches  of  beatitude!  Thou,  O  God,  pos- 
sessest  all  the  treasures  of  knowledge ;  remove  each  foul  taint 


140  GENTILISJI. 

from  our  souls  ;  we  continual! y  approach  Thee  with  the  highest 
praise  and  the  most  fervid  adoration." 

Of  such  sort  were  the  first  strains  of  Hindoo  intellectual 
melody  which  reached  the  ears  of  Europeans.  Yet,  at  that 
time,  only  a  few  pages  of  the  Yedas  had  been  perused  and 
translated.  How  much  more  is  known  from  the  labors  of  later 
Orientalists,  of  Colebrooke,  Max  Miiller,  Wilson,  Burnouf, 
Hang,  and  so  many  others  ! 

Hear  from  the  Rig- Veda  that  this  world  had  a  beginning,  and 
what  existed  before  :  "  Then  (before  creation),  there  was  no 
entity  or  non-entity ;  no  world,  or  sky,  or  aught  above  it ; 
nothing  anywhere  involving  or  involved  in  the  happiness  of 
any  one  (created) ;  nor  water  deep  and  dangerous.  Death  was 
not,  nor  was  there  immortality  (for  created  beings),  nor  distinc- 
tion of  day  or  night.  But  THAT  breathed  without  (sensible) 
afflation,  single  with  Her  who  is  within  Him  (Eternal  Wisdom 
probably).  Other  than  Him  nothing  existed  which  since  has 
been  ....  Who  knows  exactly,  and  who  shall  in  this  world 
declare  whence  and  why  this  creation  took  place  ?  The  gods 
(devattis)  are  subsequent  to  the  production  of  this  world ;  then 
who  can  know  whence  it  proceeded,  or  whence  this  varied 
world  arose,  or  whether  it  upholds  itself  or  not  ?  He  who  in 
the  highest  heaven  is  the  ruler  of  this  universe,  does  indeed 
know ;  but  not  another  one  can  possess  this  knowledge  ? " 
In  this  passage  we  have  inserted  a  gloss  of  ours  between 
brackets. 

Max  Miiller  thinks  that  Brahma  was  not  the  only  name  given 
to  the  Supreme  by  the  first  Hindoos.  He  even  goes  so  far  as 
to  say  that  many  names  were  applied  to  Him  ;  and  he  supposes 
that  the  subsequent  gods  of  the  Indian  mythology  were  all  Su- 
preme in  the  Hindoo  mind  ;  and  thus,  in  his  opinion,  polythe- 
ism was  introduced.  We  cannot  discuss  this  theory  of  the 
celebrated  writer — for  it  seems  to  be  with  him  a  theory  ;  yet 
there  is  a  name  often  used  by  the  writers  of  "  hymns  "  in  the 


ABORIGINAL    KELIGION    IX    HIKDOSTAN.  141 

Yedas,  which  evidently  in  their  mind  was  that  of  the  true 
Almighty  God.  It  is  Yaruna,  the  Greek  Ovpavbg,  "an  ancient 
name  of  the  sky,"  Mr.  Miiller  says,  "  and  of  the  God  who 
resides  in  the  sky."  He  took  the  trouble  to  translate  the 
whole  hymn,  and  introduces  it  in  his  "  Fourth  Lecture  on  the 
Science  of  Religion,"  by  the  following  solemn  words  perfectly 
appropriate  to  our  purpose  :  "  It  was — the  hymn — more  than 
three  thousand  years  ago,  uttered  for  the  first  time  in  a  village  on 
the  banks  of  the  Sutledge,  then  called  the  Satadru,  by  a  man  who 
felt  as  we  feel,  who  spoke  as  we  speak,  who  believed  in  many 
points  as  we  believe."  He  had  previously  given  his  name,  Ya- 
sishtha — "  a  dark-complexioned  Hindoo,  shepherd,  poet,  priest, 
patriarch  ....  and  does  it  not  show  the  indestructibility  of  the 
spirit,  if  we  see  how  the  waves  which,  by  a  poetic  impulse,  he 
started  on  the  vast  ocean  of  thought,  have  been  heaving,  and 
spreading,  and  widening,  till  after  centuries  and  centuries  they 
strike  against  our  shores,  and  tell  us  in  accents  that  cannot  be 
mistaken,  what  passed  through  the  mind  of  that  ancient  Aryan 
poet,  when  he  felt  the  presence  of  an  Almighty  God,  the  maker 
of  heaven  and  earth,  and  felt  at  the  same  time  the  burden  of 
his  sin,  and  prayed  to  his  God  that  He  might  take  that  burden 
from  him,  that  He  might  forgive  him  his  sin." 

"  Wise  and  mighty  are  the  works  of  Him  who  stemmed 
asunder  the  wide  firmaments  (heaven  and  earth).  He  lifted 
on  high  the  bright  and  glorious  heaven ;  He  stretched  out 
apart  the  starry  sky  and  the  earth. 

"  Do  I  say  this  to  my  own  self  ?  How  can  I  get  near  into 
Yaruna  ?  Will  He  accept  my  offering  without  displeasure  ? 
WTien  shall  I  with  a  quiet  mind  see  Him  propitiated  ? 

"  I  ask,  O  Yaruna,  wishing  to  know  this  my  sin ;  I  go  to 
inquire  of  the  wise  ;  the  sages  all  tell  me  the  same  :  (  Yaruna 
it  is  who  is  angry  with  thee.' 

"  Was  it  for  an  old  sin,  O  Yaruna,  that  Thou  wishest  to  de- 
stroy thy  friend  wko  always  praises  Thee  ?  Tell  me,  Thou 


142  GEXTILISM. 

unconquerable  Lord  !  and  I  will  quickly  turn  to  Thee  with 
praise,  freed  from  sin. 

"  Absolve  us  from  the  sins  of  our  fathers,  and  from  those 
which  we  committed  with  our  own  bodies.  Release  Yasishtha, 
O  King,  like  a  thief  who  has  feasted  on  stolen  cattle  ;  release 
him  like  a  calf  from  the  rope. 

"  It  was  not  our  doing,  O  Yaruna,  it  was  a  slip  ;  an  intoxi- 
cating draught,  passion,  dice,  thoughtlessness.  The  old  is  thero 
to  mislead  the  young  ;  even  sleep  is  not  free  from  mischief. 

"  Let  me  without  sin  give  satisfaction  to  the  angry  God,  like 
a  slave  to  Jiis  bounteous  lord.  The  Lord  God  enlighten  the 
foolish ;  He,  the  wisest,  leads  His  worshipper  to  wealth. 

"  O  Lord  Yaruna,  may  this  song  go  well  to  Thy  heart ! 
May  we  prosper  in  keeping  and  acquiring !  Protect  us,  O 
gods,  always  with  your  blessings." 

"  This  poem  alone,"  says  Max  Miiller,  "  shows  that  man 
was  never  forsaken  of  God  ;  and  this  conviction  is  worth  more 
to  the  student  of  history  than  all  the  dynasties  of  Babylon  and 
Egypt,  worth  more  than  all  lacustrine  villages,  worth  more 
than  the  skulls  and  jaw-bones  of  Neanderthal  or  Abbeville." 

Yet  the  same  writer  gives  us  a  far  superior  hymn,  in  our 
opinion,  in  his  "  History  of  Sanscrit  Literature  "  (London  edit., 
1860,  p.  540),  and  as  it  is  short,  we  copy  it : 

"  Let  me  not  yet,  O  Yaruna,  enter  into  the  house  of  clay. 
Have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy. 

"  If  I  go  along  trembling  like  a  cloud  driven  by  the  wind, 
have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy. 

"  Through  want  of  strength,  Thou  strong  and  bright  God, 
have  I  gone  to  the  wrong  shore.  Have  mercy,  Almighty,  etc. 

"  Thirst  came  upon  the  worshipper,  though  he  stood  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters.  Have  mercy,  Almighty,  etc. 

"  Whenever  we  men,  O  Yaruna,  commit  an  offence  before 
the  heavenly  host,  whenever  we  break  Thy  law  through  thought- 
lessness ;  have  mercy,  Almighty,  have  mercy." 


ABOEIGINAL    RELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAN.  143 

Mr.  Miiller  remarks  with  justice  on  the  subject  of  this  short 
poem,  that  "  the  language  of  these  simple  prayers  of  the  Yedas 
is  more  intelligible  to  us  than  anything  we  find  in  the  liter^- 
ture  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  there  are  here  and  there  ardent 
expressions  of  faith  and  devotion  in  which  even  a  Christian  can 
join  without  irreverence." 

This  is  perfectly  true,  and  we  could  not  certainly  "join  with- 
out irreverence "  in  any  of  the  prayers  of  the  pagan  Romans 
and  Greeks  when  addressing  Bacchus  or  Yenus.  Thus  the 
men  of  those-  primitive  times,  when  the  Hindoo  "  sacred " 
books  were  written,  may  be  said  to  have  been  much  nearer 
our  own  days  than  the  much  more  recent  inhabitants  of  Italy 
or  Hellas;  and  we  naturally  find  the  language  and  the  feelings, 
of  those  old  patriarchs  untainted,  as  yet,  with  idolatry,  a  great 
deal  more  genial  and  acceptable  to  us. 

But  besides  Brahma  and  Yaruna  (Ovpovb?-),  the  Supreme 
God  received  often  in  Hindostan  the  name  of  "  sky "  and 
"  light,"  and  we  will  here  conclude  our  observations  on  this 
part  of  our  subject.  It  is  Max  Miiller  again  who  remarks,  that 
the  name  of  the  Supreme  God  was  originally  Dyaus  in  San- 
scrit, Zeus  in  Greek,  Jovis  or  rather  Diespiter  in  Latin,  and 
Tiu  in  German.  "  These  words  are  not  mere  words,"  he  says, 
"  but  they  bring  before  us  with  all  the  vividness  of  an  event 
which  we  witnessed  ourselves  but  yesterday,  the  ancestors  of 
the  whole  Aryan  race,  thousands  of  years  may  be  before  Homer 
and  the  Yedas,  worshipping  an  unseen  Being,  under  the  self- 
same name,  the  best,  the  most  exalted  name  they  could  find  in 
their  vocabulary — under  the  name  of  LIGHT  and  SKY.  And  let 
us  not  turn  away  and  say  that  this  was  after  all  but  nature-wor- 
ship and  idolatry.  !N^o,  it  was  not  meant  for  that,  though  ^l 
may  have  been  degraded  into  that  in  later  times"  We  under- 
line these  expressions  as  very  remarkable  in  the  gifted  author, 
because  he  often  seems  to  think  that  the  Aryan,  as  well  as  all 

other  races,  began  bv  nature-worship,  and  raised  themselvea 
11 


144  GENTILISM. 

afterwards  to  the  higher  belief  of  true  monotheism — a  com- 
pletely false  idea,  of  which  even  Max  Miiller,  it  seems,  could  not 
dispossess  himself.  "Dyaus"  he  continues,  "  did  not  mean  the 
blue  sky,  nor  was  it  simply  the  sky  personified.  It  was  meant 
for  something  else.  We  have  in  the  Yedas  the  invocation : 
Dyaus  pitar,  in  Greek  Zev  -rrdrep,  in  Latin  Dies  piter  or  Jupiter, 
and  that  means,  in  all  the  three  languages,  what  it  meant  before 
these  three  languages  were  torn  asunder.  It  means  Heaven- 
Father  !  These  two  words  are  not  mere  words.  They  are,  to 
my  mind,  the  oldest  poem,  the  oldest  prayer  of  mankind,  or, 
at  least,  of  that  pure  branch  of  it  to  which  we  belong." 

We  may  add  that  this  invocation,  going  back  to  the  very 
origin  of  our  race,  is  evidently  a  part  of  that  primeval  revelation 
of  which  we  have  already  spoken,  and  which  our  Divine  Lord 
only  revealed  with  more  consummate  clearness,  when  He  taught 
us  to  say  :  Our  Father,  who  art  in  Heaven. 

But  there  is  in  the  name,  Light,  given  to  God,  a  great  deal 
more  than  Max  Miiller  appears  to  imagine.  In  another  fine 
passage  of  the  same  lecture,  he  explained  how  the  first  Aryans 
themselves  were  led  to  give  it  to  the  Supreme  Being ;  and  he 
imagines  that  they  merely  looked  all  around  themselves  to  find 
in  their  language  the  expression  most  appropriate  to  the  Being 
whom  they  worshipped  in  their  own  mind,  and  as  they  could 
see  in  the  whole  creation  nothing  to  compare  with  the  bright 
and  immense  sky  over  their  heads,  they  chose  it  as  that  which 
came  nearer  to  their  original  idea,  although  it  could  not  express 
it  entirely,  and  was,  in  fact,  a  failure,  as,  we  think,  he  calls  it. 
This  is  connected  with  his  theory,  that  the  religion  of  any  peo- 
ple ought  to  be  sought  in  their  language ;  that  in  truth  religion 
came  from  language.  A  thought  striking  at  first  sight,  and 
which  we  are  far  from  placing  on  a  par  with  the  degrading 
doctrine  of  the  supporters  of  primitive  barbarism  ;  yet  which 
we  cannot  admit,  and  must  reject  in  toto  ;  because  religion  is 
in  se  anterior  to  language,  although  both  belonged  to  man 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN   HINDOSTAN.  145 

from  his  very  origin.  Religion  is  a  sentiment  which  could  not 
be  generated  by  language.  This  latter  was  merely  the  expres- 
sion of  the  former. 

Man,  indeed,  had  many  reasons  for  applying  the  name,  Light, 
to  God.  According  to  St.  Paul,  the  Author  of  all  things  has 
manifested  Himself  in  His  creation,  and  all  His  great  attributes 
can  be  read  there.  Was  it  not,  consequently,  because  light  is 
the  most  perfect  emblem  of  the  Godhead  that  it  was  first  cre- 
ated ?  fiat  lux  is  the  great  word  which  ushers  in  all  the  other 
creative  acts  of  God.  And  we  know  how  sublime  Longinus, 
though  a  pagan,  thought  that  short  phrase  to  be.  Light  alone 
would  have  sufficed  for  expressing  nearly  all,  if  not  all,  the 
attributes  of  the  Divine  Being — His  immensity,  'power,  good- 
ness, immateriality,  indestructibility,  etc.  And  was  it  not  for 
this,  when  in  the  fullness  of  time,  God  wished  to  manifest 
Himself  to  us  by  assuming  our  nature,  and  the  most  beloved 
disciple  was  impelled  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  declare  the  incar- 
nation of  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  real  and  substantial  divinity 
of  Jesus  Christ,  that  in  the  first  lines  of  his  gospel,  he  called 
Him — what  ?  the  infinite  ?  the  absolute  ?  etc.  No ;  but  the 
true  Light — erat  lux  vera  ? 

It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the  primitive  Aryans  had  many 
reasons  for  choosing  the  word  Dyaus — light  or  sky — as  the 
name  of  the  Almighty.  We  have  every  motive  for  supposing 
that  they  did  not  find  the  name  after  a  long  search,  as  Max 
Miiller  supposes.  It  rushed  into  the  minds  of  the  first  men  in 
their  communication  with  God — for  revelation  for  us  is  iden- 
tical with  communication.  We  do  not  know  indeed  whether 
the  Divine  Author  of  our  race  in  His  sweet  intercourse  with 
the  first  man,  and  with  many  patriarchs  of  those  early  ages, 
revealed  the  name  itself,  as  He  did  that  of  Jehovajh.  to  Moses — 
I  am  He  who  is.  If  He  did  not  by  word  of  mouth,  He  did 
by  an  interior  revelation,  which  we  intended  to  convey  in  the 
expression,  "  the  name,  Light,  rushed  to  the  mind  of  the  first 


146  GENTILISM. 

men  in  their  communication  with  God."  And  since  that  time 
it  has  been  the  most  appropriate,  and  the  most  universal,  even 
in  pagan. antiquity  ;  and,  we  repeat,  when  a  new,  purer,  clearer 
revelation  was  given  through  Jesus  Christ,  the  same  name  was 
given  again  to  the  Incarnate  God — erat  lux  vera. 

These  liigh  considerations,  which  the  study  of  the  Yedas 
have  naturally  suggested,  show  how  pure,  elevated,  really  sub- 
lime was  the  primitive  doctrine,  since  it  originates  such  con- 
templations as  these,  which  are,  in  fact,  in  the  style  of  many 
Yedic  upanishads. 

"We  now  hasten  to  the  investigation  of  those  less  fortunate 
times,  when  pantheism  began  to  invade  the  Domain  of  truth. 


YIL 


No  Christian  can  pretend  that  the  oldest  upanishads  are  alto- 
gether free  from  error;  no  uninspired  writing  can  be — and 
some  of  the  finest  among  them  contain  already  the  seeds  of  the 
subsequent  pantheism,  gliding  gradually  into  naturalism,  to 
come  finally  to  the  epic  idolatry  which  followed.  But  hi  those 
really  astonishing  productions  of  religious  philosophy,  even 
when  already  somewhat  tainted,  how  clear  appears  the  bright- 
ness of  primitive  revelation  !  We  will  quote  as  an  example  a 
passage  of  the  Kathaka  Upanishad :  a  doubt  is  submitted  to 
Yama,  the  sovereign  of  the  dead,  in  these  words  :  "  Some  say 
that  the  soul  exists  after  the  death  of  a  man  (in  connection 
with  another  body  than  this) ;  others  say  that  it  does  not.  This 
I  should  like  to  know,  instructed  by  thee."  Yama  explains  to 
him  that  the  soul  and  Brahma  are  one — (not  in  nature,  at 
least  in  the  primitive  doctrine) — that  a  man  attains  immortality 
only  by  understanding  this  union,  and  that,  to  arrive  at  this 
understanding,  he  must  free  his  mind  from  sensual  desires,  and 
get  a  correct  knowledge  both  of  Brahma  and  of  the  soul. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAN.  147 

"  Know  the  soul  as  the  rider  and  the  body  as  the  car  ;  know 
intellect  as  the  charioteer,  and  manas  (the  will)  as  the  rein. 
The  senses,  they  say,  are  the  horses ;  the  objects,  their  roads ; 
and  the  enjoyer  (or  the  rider),  is  the  soul  endowed  with  body, 
senses,  and  manas  (or  will).  Thus  say  the  wise  :  "  If  the  char- 
ioteer is  unwise,  and  his  manas  is  always  unbridled,  his  senses 
are  uncontrolled  like  vicious  horses ;  but  if  he  is  wise,  and  his 
manas  is  always  bridled,  then  his  senses  are  controlled  like 
good  horses.  He  who,  always  impure,  is  unwise,  and  whose 
manas  is  unbridled,  does  not  attain  that  abode  (of  immortality), 
but  comes  to  the  world  (of  birth  and  death,  of  expiation  by 
transmigration).  He,  however,  who,  always  pure,  is  wise,  and 
whose  manas  is  bridled,  he  attains  that  abode  whence  he  is  not 
born  again.  The  man  who  has  a  wise  charioteer,  and  whose 
manas  is  bridled,  reaches  the  other  shfie  of  the  road.  Higher 
indeed  than  the  objects  are  the  senses ;  higher  than  the  senses 
is  manas  ;  higher  than  manas,  intellect ;  and  higher  than  intel- 
lect, the  great  one  (the  soul).  Higher  than  the  great  one  is 
that  which  is  unmanifested,  and  higher  than  the  unmanifested, 
is  the  Supreme  Spirit.  But  higher  than  the  Supreme  Spirit 
there  is  nothing ;  He  is  the  goal,  the  highest  resort.  This 
highest  spirit  is  the  soul  hidden  in  created  beings ;  it  is  not 
manifest,  but  is  beheld  by  those  who  can  see  what  is  subtle  with 
an  attentive,  subtle  intellect." 

*• 

Here,  with  an  admirable  analysis  of  the  soul's  faculties,  and 
of  the  relations  of  the  soul  and  body,  truly  worthy  of  the  most 
pure  primitive  doctrine,  we  see  the  beginning  of  two  great 
aberrations,  which  became  the  unfortunate  cause  of  the  devia- 
tion of  subsequent  philosophy,  and  the  ruin  of  the  primeval 
true  religion.  These  two  aberrations  were :  the  transmigra- 
tions of  the  soul,  and  its  absorption  in  Brahma.  This  was  the 
passage  from  monotheism  to  pantheism,  from  which  was  to 
issue  the  subsequent  idolatry. 

It  is  very  remarkable  that  the  transmigration  of  the  soul  is 


148  GEJfTILISM. 

never  mentioned  in  the  Rig- Veda — the  oldest.  At  first  it  was 
thought  by  modern  critics  to  be  contained  in  some  expressions 
of  the  thirty-second  verse  of  one  of  the  hymns,  according  to  the 
translation  of  Professor  Wilson.  But  a  more  serious  examina- 
tion proved  that  the  passage,  although  susceptible  of  such  a 
meaning,  could  more  naturally  bear  a  very  different  interpreta- 
tion ;  so  that  it  is  now  admitted  that  the  Rig-Yeda  is  pure  of 
that  error ;  a  new  proof  that  the  oldest  doctrine  is  the  purest. 
The  absorption  of  the  soul  in  Brahma  grew  gradually  also  from 
the  primitive  tenet,  orthodox  certainly ;  that  the  soul  was  the 
same  in  kind  with  Brahma,  but  infinitely  distant  in  degree. 
The  union  of  the  soul  with  God  after  death  (a  truth  Christian 
as  well  as  Yedic),  became  gradually  a  real  absorption,  and  thus 
led  to  pantheism. 

Nothing  is  more  easy  fc>  conceive  than  such  a  degeneracy  in 
doctrine,  in  the  supposition  of  a  primitive  revelation  left  with 
only  human  tradition  for  a  channel  of  communication  through 
long  ages.  The  versatility  of  the  human  mind  is  such,  that  a 
strong  and  exterior  restraint  is  required  to  keep  it  in  due  sub- 
mission to  truth.  Christ  gave  that  power  to  the  Church  which 
He  established.  Nothing  of  the  kind  existed  before  His  com- 
ing; not  even  in  the  Synagogue,  which  left  the  subversive 
tenets  of  the  Sadducees  uncontradicted.  The  great  truths, 
therefore,  entrusted  to  man  at  the  beginning  could  not  possibly 
remain  entirely  pure ;  and  fhe  natural  progress  which  might 
have  been  expected  was  the  retrogression  from  unmixed  truth, 
first  to  a  sh'ght  deviation  from  it,  then  to  a  strange  misconcep- 
tion of  it,  leading  finally  to  positive,  unmitigated  error. 

The 'Book  of  Wisdom,  has  tojd  us  that  men  began  to  err  by 
worshipping  the  works  of  God  instead  of  God  himself.  We 
see  in  Hindostan  the  first  symptoms  of  the  great  evil.  Ab- 
sorption in  God  naturally  leads  to  deify  the  whole  universe, 
and  thus  to  make  the  works  of  God  equal  to  Himself,  in  order 
finally  to  worship  them.  Too  sfeon  was  this  the  case  in  India. 


AfiORIGLtfAL    EELIGION    IN    HIXDOSTAN.  149 

The  Yedas  were  not  written  all  at  once,  and  of  course  they  are 
not  inspired  as  the  Hindoos  think.  The  first  even,  the  most 
pure,  is  the  work  of  many  Rishis  and  great  personages.  Soon, 
In  the  finest  upanishads,  which  contained  yet  admirable  traits 
of  the  primeval  grandeur,  a  reckless  imagination  introduced 
new  forms  of  thought,  chiefly  by  exaggerating  what  had  been 
first  transmitted  from  lieaven.  Expiation  was  the  great  moral 
law  revealed  even  in  Paradise,  when  man  had  to  leave  it.  It 
took  in  Hindostan  the  form  of  the  wanderings  of  souls  from 
bodies  to  bodies,  until  first  the  idea  of  existence  became  a  bur- 
den, and  the  wish  arose  to  be  absorbed  in  God,  until  at  last 
philosophy  should  come  to  turn  it  into  positive  annihilation — 
nii'vana. 

The  progress  of  error  was  so  rapid,  that  when  the  book  of 
Menu  was  written,  certainly  before  the  end  of  the  Yedic  period 
— since  the  Atharvan-Veda  had  not  yet  begun  to  appear — 
already  the  imagined  creation  of  the  universe  was  a  jumble  of 
ridiculous  legends,  mixed  up  with  some  sublime  conceptions 
left  still  entire  in  the  universal  wreck.  (See  the  1st  chap,  of 
Menu  "  On  Creation.")  Yet  this  book  was  composed  in  a  pure 
moral  age,  and  .contains  an  immense  number  of  splendid  imagin- 
ings. But,  already,  the  error  of  transmigration  had  attained  its 
utmost  limits.  Incredible  details  were  given  as  inspired ;  so  that 
to  each  sin  committed  in  this  world,  Jhe  exact  being,  animal, 
plant,  or  mineral  even,  was  allotted  into  which  the  guilty  soul 
had  to  transmigrate.  Already,  likewise,  the  torments  accom- 
panying these  changes  were  described  with  a  minuteness  and 
horrible  accuracy  worthy  of  the  long-subsequent  Inferno  of 
Dante.  It  was  hell  indeed  without  its  eternity.  AiM  such 
doctrines  prepared  already  the  Hindoo  mind  for  the  desire  of  ab- 
sorption in  God,  merging  at  last  in  pantheism  and  the  "  nirva- 
na." The  twelfth  chapter  of  Menu  deserves  indeed  to  be  read  by 
every  one  who  wishes  to  understand  the  rapid  progress  of^rror 
in  Hiudostan.  The  conclusion  arrived  at  will  be  abundantly 


150  GENTILISM. 

confirmed  by  the  reflection  that  a  few  centuries  before,  when 
the  Big- Veda  was  written,  not  an  iota  of  that  doctrine  had  yet 
been  even  imagined.  It  is  to  us  perfectly  clear  that  the  error 
of  transmigration  preceded  that  of  openly-declared  absorption 
in  God,  for  which  it  prepared  the  way.  And  the  Institutes  of 
Menu  prove  it ;  since,  with  all  the  minute  details  of  the  first 
doctrine  they  contain,  the  other  one  of  absorption  is  nowhere 
in  the  book  fully  advocated.  Not  a  word  of  it  is  said  in  the 
first  chapter,  which  treats  of  creation,  cosmogony,  and  the  sup- 
posed divine  plan  in  the  existence  of  various  beings ;  no  full 
expression  is  given  to  it  whenever  the  book  speaks  of  supreme 
beatitude  ;  and  even  in  this  twelfth  chapter,  after  the  elaborate 
explanation  of  the  wanderings  of  souls,  when  speaking  of  the 
destiny  of  the  pure,  the  wise,  and  the  holy,  the  highest  felicity 
it  promises  them  is :  union  with  the  male  Brahma  (already 
known  it  seems),  union  with  the  mighty  and  the  unperceived ; 
but  not  with  Brahma  (neuter),  the  Supreme  One,  Infinite,  Eter- 
nal Spirit  There  is  even,  a  little  later,  after  all  the  trivial 
rubbish  previously  detailed,  a  bright  spot  reflecting  yet  some- 
thing of  primitive  effulgence  which  deserves  to  be  quoted 
(Chap,  xii.,  84) :  "  The  sages  inquired  :  '  After  all  those  good 
acts  performed  in  this  world  (to  insure  final  happiness),  is  no 
single  act  held  more  powerful  than  the  rest  in  leading  men  to 
beatitude  ?' "  (85) :  "  Of  all  these  .duties,"  answered  Bhrigu, 
"  the  principal  is  to  acquire  from  the  upanishads  a  true  knowl- 
edge of  One  Supreme  God ;  that  is  the  most  exalted  of  all  sci- 
ences, because  it  ensures  immortality."  (86) :  "  In  this  life,  in- 
deed, as  well  as  the  next,  the  study  of  the  Yedas,  to  acquire  a 
knowledge  of  God,  is  held  the  most  efficacious  of  those  six 
duties  in  procuring  f elicity  to  man."  (87) :  "  For  in  the  knowl- 
edge and  adoration  of  one  God,  which  the  Yedas  teach,  all  the 
rules  of  good  conduct  are  fully  comprised."  (88) :  "  The  cere- 
moniy  duties  prescribed  by  the  Yedas  (namely,  oblations  to 
fire,  sacrifices,  etc.,)  are  of  two  kinds :  ons  connected  with  this 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN   HIKDOSTAN.  151 

world,  and  causing  prosperity  on  earth ;  the  other  abstracted 
from  it,  and  procuring  bliss  in  heaven."  (89) :  "  A  religious 
act  proceeding  from  selfish  views  in  this  world  (as  a  sacrifice  to 
obtain  rain),  or  in  the  next  (as  a  pious  oblation  in  the  hope  of 
a  future  reward),  is  declared  to  be  concrete  and  interested  ;  but 
an  act  performed  with  a  true  knowledge  of  God,  and  with- 
out self-love,  is  called  abstract  and  disinterested."  (90) :  "  He 
who  frequently  performs  interested  rites,  attains  an  equal  sta- 
tion with  the  rulers  of  the  lower  heaven ;  but  he  who  frequently 
performs  disinterested  acts  of  religion,  becomes  for  ever  ex- 
empt from  a  body  composed  of  the  five  elements  " — that  is  to 
say,  is  not  any  more  subject  to  transmigration".  (91)  :  "  Equally 
perceiving  the  Supreme  soul  in  all  beings,  and  all  beings  in  the 
Supreme  soul,  he  sacrifices  his  own  spirit  by  fixing  it  on  the 
Spirit  of  God,  and  approaches  the  nature  of  that  Sole  Divinity 
who  shines  by  His  own  effulgence."  This  last  paragraph  does 
not,  of  necessity,  lead  to  pantheism.  A  quite  similar  doctrine 
has  often  been  developed  by  Catholic  mystic  writers  of  the 
school  of  "  pure  love  ;"  and  one  is  really  astonished  to  find  it 
so  clearly  expressed  in  the  law  of  Menu.  But  the  road  is 
already  plain  which  error  was  to  take,  in  order  to  invade  the 
religious  life  of  such  enlightened  men  as  the  primitive  Hindoos 
were.  A  similar,  concurrent,  testimony  to  the  truth  we  are 
endeavoring  to  establish  is  supplied  by  what  is  said  of  "  cere- 
monial rites."  It  furnishes  a  new  proof,  that  those  primitive 
religious  functions  contained  really  nothing  of  the  worship  of 
elements,  and  the  theory  which  modern  critics  have  endeavored 
to  establish,  the  natural  passage,  namely,  from  "  elementary 
religion"  to  "  monotheism"  is  not  substantiated ;  because  a  truly 
grand  monotheistic  belief  alw.ays  accompanied  those  "  ceremo- 
nial rites  "  even,  of  the  Eig-Yeda. 

But  when  the  doctrine  of  a  "  universal  soul "  was  openly 
proclaimed ;  when  it  was  asserted  that  our  own  is  a  "  spark  " 
from  the  "  blazing  fire,"  that  God  ia  "  all  beings,"  and  "  all 


152  GENTILISM. 

beings  are  God,"  then  indeed,  Agni,  Indra,  Cuhu,  and  all  the 
other  "  devatas  "  became  parcels  of  the  Universal  God.  Then, 
indeed,  they  imagined,  as  the  Book  of  Wisdom  says,  "  either 
the  fire  " — Agni,  or  "  the  winds  " — Meruts,  or  "  the  swift  air, 
or  the  circle  of  the  stars,  or  the  great  water,  or.  the  sun  and 
moon,  to  be  the  gods  that  rule  the  world."  ^ 

This  became  for  Hindostan  the  period  of  pantheism,  usher- 
ing in  the  philosophy  prevalent  for  many  ages,  until  it  culmi- 
nated in  Buddhism. 

And  here  we  must  interrupt  our  direct  course  of  thought  to 
make  one  or  two  observations  on  that  very  mixture  of  truth 
and  falsehood  in  many  pieces  of  the  Yedas,  confirmatory  of  our 
opinion  on  the  primitive  purity  of  belief  in  Hindostan.  When 
admirable  doctrines  are  clearly  expressed,  bright  as  day  and 
pure  as  light,  and  when,  in  the  same  chapter  or  paragraph,  the 
seeds  of  error  appear  which  subsequently  ruled  supreme  in  the 
same  country,  which  of  the  two  was  the  predecessor  of  the 
other  ?  If  the  errors  were,  and  the  "  worship  of  elements"  was 
the  primitive  religion  of  the  country,  then  monotheism,  which 
on  that  hypothesis  followed  them,  was  a  true  and  very  remark- 
able "  progress,"  which  would  have  naturally  struck  deep  into 
the  Hindoo  'mind,  and  have  formed,  for  a  long  time,  the  firm 
belief  of  the  race.  The  exaggerations  and  false  consequences 
which  might  have  followed  would  certainly  have  taken  a  direc- 
tion very  different  from  the  one  out  of  which  monotheism  had 
sprung ;  and  to  suppose  that  a  pure  and  exalted  belief  emerg- 
ing from  a  kind  of  fetichism,  would  have  almost  immediately 
returned  to  it,  or  even  to  a  large  and  universal  pantheism, 
much  more  akin  to  the  "  worship  of  elements,"  is  to  ignore 
human  nature  and  to  contradict  the  very  doctrine  of  "pro- 
gress," advocated  so  warmly  by  the  very  supporters  of  the 
opinion  we  endeavor  to  disprove. 

It  took  long  ages  to  obscure  entirely  the  primitive  patriarchal 
religion,  and  the  progress  of  error  was  so  gradual,  although  at 


ABOEIGIXAL    EELIGIOISr    IX    HIXDOSTAN.  153 

times  rapid,  that  it  is  impossible  to  assign  a  positive  epoch  to 
the  introduction  of  idolatry.  It  would  be  unreasonab  e  to 
imagine  that  the  adoration  of  a  "  Supreme  Ruler,"  eo  clearly  BX- 
pressed  in  primitive  Hindooism,  and  which  is  supposed  by 
many  writers  to  have  been  the  natural  result  of  philosophical 
investigation,  could  have  been  so  soon  replaced  by  pantheism 
and  the  rank  idolatry  which  followed.  The  same  writers,  it  is 
true,  try  their  best  to  ignore  that  primitive  purity  of  belief 
which  we  advocate.  But  they  cannot  destroy  the  texts  we 
have  quoted  and  many  others  which  could  be  adduced ;  and 
Heeren  expressed  only  a  simple  fact  when  he  said,  that  "  the 
religious  system  of  the  Hindoos,  according  to  the  unanimous 
opinion  of  all  those  who  have  studied  the  subject,  has  for  its 
foundation  the  belief  in  one  God."  At  the  same  time,  the 
whole  formula  of  "  progressive  "  error  in  Hindooism  forms  a 
"  series  "  which  cannot  be  broken.  It  begins  in  the  Rig-Veda, 
by  pure  monotheism  unmixed  as  yet  with  pantheism  and  trans- 
migration. It  exhibits  in  the  laws  of  Menu  a  multitude  of 
erroneous  deviations  which  strike  the  reader  at  first  sight.  It 
teaches  open  pantheism  in  the  subsequent  philosophy  which 
was  deduced  from  those  errors,  chiefly  in  Buddhism,  an  off- 
shoot of  the  Hindooism  of  that  period,  as  we  shall  prove. 
Pure  idolatry,  or  the  worship  of  the  works  of  man,  according 
to  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  is  finally  the  religion  advocated  in  the 
great  poems  of  Ramayana  and  Mahabahrata,  which  followed ; 
an  idolatry  which  culminated  in  the  puranas  and  the  tantras, 
of  which  we  have  yet  to  speak.  No  link  is  wanted  in  that 
chain  of  errors  which  we  have  called  a  strict  "  series  ;"  and  we 
do  not  see  how  a  more  perfect  demonstration  of  our  opinion 
could  be  furnished,  than  the  well-known  succession  of  beliefs 
in  Hindostan. 

Our  next  step,  therefore,  is  to  examine  briefly  the  philosophy 
which  was  the  real  introducer  of  pure  pantheism  in  that  country, 
and  whose  remarkable  exponent,  Buddhism,  remains  to  this  day. 


154  GENTILISM. 


YIII. 

The  pliilosopliical  labors  of  Hindoo-Brahmins  began  during 
the  Yedic  period,  since  the  Institutes  of  Menu  contain  already 
speculations  which  entered  largely  into  the  succeeding  systems. 
The  Mimansa  is  yet  almost  completely  Yedic,  and  contains  lit- 
tle of  the  subsequent  errors.  The  Vedanta  is  considered  in  the 
same  light  by  Max  Muller;  but  its  branches,  called  Nydya, 
and  Sdnkhya,  preach  openly  the  doctrine  of  a  Great  Pan,  sole 
reality  ;  the  exterior  world  having  no  true  existence.  In  this 
system  the  human  soul  is  a  part  of  the  universal  one,  and  is 
destined  to  be  finally  merged  and  absorbed  in  it.  We  remem- 
ber the  utterances  of  the  first  Yedas,  declaring  God  "  one  in 
kind  with  our  soul,  but  infinitely  superior  in  Degree."  How 
different  are  the  two  doctrines  !  Yet  we  see  clearly  in  the  first 
the  genesis  of  the  last. 

The  philosophy  of  Hindostan  is  remarkable  chiefly  in  two 
ways  :  First,  in  the  immense  variety  of  objects  it  embraces,  so 
that  most  of  the  speculations  of  Greek,  Latin,  and  modern  phi- 
losophy are  already  discussed  in  that  rich  Sanscrit  of  old  times ; 
and  the  systems  of  logic,  metaphysics,  and  theodicea,  so  differ- 
ent in  method  from  the  Aristotelic  and  scholastic  systems, 
often,  nevertheless,  open  up  views  as  remarkable  as  unexpected, 
and  show  the  extraordinary  acuteness  and  activity  of  the  Hin- 
doo mind.  Second,  in  those  strange,  abnormal — with  respect  to 
us — and  always'  original,  speculations,  we  see  from  the  start  a 
union  of  abstract  philosophy  with  physiology  and  physical  sci- 
ence in  general,  truly  astonishing,  when  we  reflect  that  our 
Western  mind  was  so  slow  in  trying  to  make  the  world  of 
spirits  and  the  world  of  exterior  objects  help  each  other  for 
the  instruction  of  man.  Leibnitz,  we  think,  was  the  first  to 
try  it,  at  least  in  the  modern  sense.  Catholic  philosophy  has 
always  done  it  in  its  own  way. 


ABOEIGHSTAL   KELIGION   IN    HOTDOSTAN.  155 

We  must  not  be  tempted  to  any  digression  on  this  inter- 
esting subject.  The  scope  of  our  work  limits  us*  for  the  pres- 
ent to  the  religious  aspect  of  the  question.  The  philosophical 
doctrines,  we  repeat,  which  followed  the  -Yedas,  and  preceded 
the  great  Epic  poems,  teach  an  undisguised  pantheism,  and  pre- 
pare the  way  for  the  Buddhistic  nirvana,  or  annihilation  of  the 
soul  as  the  only  deliverance  from  transmigration. 

Already  all  the  systems  declare,  in  their  opening  page,  that 
time  philosophy  is  the  final  emancipation  of  the  soul  from  the 
material  evils  of  this  world ;  Brahma  (neuter),  the  previous 
time  God  of  the  monotheistic  Hindoo,  has  become  the  Univer- 
sal Soul.  It  is  yet  one,  self -existent,  supreme ;  but  the  uni- 
verse has  emanated  from  It,  and  remains  a  part  of  its  sub-  , 
stance ;  its  visibility  being  merely  a  deception — maya.  The 
soul  of  man  is  itself  a  part  of  the  great  Soul ;  it  is  a  spark 
issued  from  a  blazing  fire  ;  and  it  will  remain,  apparently,  dis- 
tinct from  Brahma,  only  as  long  as  its  ignorance  of  truth  shall 
continue ;  that  ignorance  consists  merely  in  regarding  the  world 
as  a  reality  capable  of  subsisting  out  of  Brahma.  The  object 
of  philosophy  is,  therefore,  to  teach  that  we  are  one  with  God, 
or  rather  that  the  whole  universe  is  one  with  Him.  The  conse- 
quence is,  that  the  whole  universe  must  be  adored,  if  there  is 
such  a  thing  as  a  worship  of  God.  Thus,  as  the  Book  of  Wis- 
dom openly  declared,  man  was  led  to  prostrate  himself  before 
the  works  of  God,  ignoring  the  true  Creator.  The  Hindoo 
worship  remained  meanwhile,  apparently,  that  of  the  Vedas, 
which  all  those  systems  professed  to  acknowledge  as  revealed. 
But,  indeed,  the  "  devatas "  .  acquired  then  a  very  different 
consecration  from  the  one  they  possessed  previously.  It  was 
precisely  what  would  happen  if  an  uninstructed  Catholic,  alto- 
gether ignorant  even  of  the  first  mystery  of  his  religion — the 
most  adorable  Trinity — prostrated  himself,  as  before  a  god,  at 
the  sight  of  "  holy  water "  with  which  his  ancestors  had  been 
directed  to  bless  themselves  in  that  Supreme  Name.  Hence 


156  GENTILISM. 

the  Yoga  part  }f  the  iSdnTchya  laid  already  the  foundation  of 
all  the  absurd  practices  of  idolatrous  fakirs,  as  they  are  wit- 
nessed in  the  Hindostao  of  our  day. 

How  long  a  tiin»  this  remained  the  prevalent  superstition  of 
India,  we  do  not  know,  as  the  country  does  not  possess  any 
more  architectural  remains  of  it  than  of  the  preceding  Vedic 
period.  But  it  is  now  proved  beyond  question  that  it  merged 
finally  into  the  open  atheistic  pantheism  of  the  Buddhists. 


IX. 


Until  very  recently  nothing  was  known  of  the  true  origin  of 
Buddhism.  For  a  long  time  it  was  thought  to  be  more  recent 
than  Christianity.  Later  on,  the  general  opinion  inclined  to 
make  it  older  even  than  Brahminism.  But  in  1828,  Mr.  B.  II. 
Hodgson,  British  resident  at  the  court  of  Nepaul,  where  Buddh- 
ism is  the  prevalent  religion,  discovered  a  voluminous  compila- 
tion of  Sanscrit  manuscripts,  which  were  found  to  be  nothing 
else  than  what  may  be  called  the  "  sacred  books  "  from  which 
those  of  Thibet,  Mongolia,  and  China  were  translated.  The 
ones  used  in  Ceylon,  Burmah,  Siam,  etc.,  are  in  Pali,  and  agree 
in  the  main  with  the  Nepaulese  manuscripts,  although  neither 
set  is  the  translation  of  the  other. 

Copies  of  this  precious  treasure,  transported  to  London  and 
Paris,  attracted  the  attention  of  Orientalists,  and  Mr.  Eugene 
Burnouf ,  after  a  serious  study  of  those  documents,  published  in 
1844  his  "  Introduction  to  the.  History  of  Buddhism."  From 
that  moment  a  public  opinion,  regarded  now  as  final,  was 
formed  on  the  subject. 

The  founder  of  this  wide-spread  superstition  lived  about  six 
hundred  years  before  Christ.  This  is  now  ascertained — his 
name  was  Siddartha,  son  of  a  Hindoo  Rajah,  whose  territory 
lay  on  the  confines  of  Oude  and  Nepaul.  Siddartha  belonged 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGIOX    liST    HINDOSTAN.  157 

to  the  Sakya  clan  ;  hence  he  is  often  called  Sakya-muni,  this 
last  adjunct  being  equivalent  to  the  Greek  /zova^o^,  from  which 
monk  is  derived.  He  is  yet  of  tener  called  Oautama,  because 
the  Sakya  clan  was  a  branch  of  the  great  "  Solar  "  race  of  that 
name.  Without  entering  into  the  details  of  the  life  of  this 
prince,  suffice  it  to  say,  that  renouncing  the  world,  and  even 
the  wife  with  whom  he  had  lived  twelve  years,  he  retired  into 
a  forest  and  abandoned  himself  to  the  wild  reveries  of  a  Hin- 
doo ascetic.  Brahminism,  the  religion  of  his  family  and  ances- 
tors, he  rejected  forever,  and  falling  back  on  the  Sankya  phi- 
losophy, then  in  full  sway,  he  carrie.d  yet  farther  than  any 
adept  of  that  system  the  principles  of  distaste  for  this  life  and 
its  pleasures,  of  dread  of  almost  endless  and  painful  transmi- 
grations, and  of  ardent  desire  toward  nirvana  or  total  annihi- 
lation, no  more  by  absorption  in  Brahma,  whicH  he  rejected 
with  the  Hindoo  Trimourti,  but  by  returning  into  the  univer- 
sal concatenation  of  causes  and  qffects,  the  only  god  which 
henceforth  he  admitted.  .  .  .  Hence  the  frightful  doctrine  he 
began  to  advocate,  became,  at  least  for  those  who  knew  it  thor- 
oughly and  embraced  it  fully,  an  atheistic  and  destructive  phi- 
losophy, the  fully  developed  and  altogether  systematized  San- 
kya doctrine.  But  for  the  great  mass  of  people  who  were  car- 
ried into  the  whirlpool  of  this  superstition,  it  became  a  real 
worship  of  man  and  the  elements.  Buddha  (the  enlightened), 
which  was  at  first  only  a  title  given  to  the  founder  of  the  sys- 
tem— Gautama — became,  in  course  of  time,  the  real  substitute 
for  God  in  the  inind  of  hundreds  of  millions  of  men ;  and 
Buddha,  or  Lama,  in  Thibet,  was  any  one  who  succeeded  in 
making  people  believe,  that  Tie  was  a  real  incarnation  of  a  pre- 
vious Buddha,  and  for  the  mass  of  the  people  there  was,  and 
there  is  yet,  no  other  God. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  true  to  say  that  400,000,000  of  the  human 
race  are  professed  atheists.  The  knaves  of  the  sect,  those  who 
profit  by  the  credulity  of  the  people,  and  live  on  the  abundant 


158  GEXTILISM. 

alms  profusely  given  to  religious  mendicants,  deserve  truly  to 
bear  that  odious  name.  But  the  masses  of  deluded  people  who 
prostrate  themselves  before  the  colossal  idols  of  the  country,  or 
in  front  of  living  impostors  surrounded  with  all  the  pomp  of 
external  worship,  surely  believe  that  they  adore  superior  beings 
from  whom  they  can  expect  blessings  and  happiness.  They 
are  consequently  by  no  means  atheists,  though  they  can  truly 
be  called  idolaters.  Let  not,  therefore,  the  infidels  of  our  day 
flatter  themselves,  as  some  of  them  do  certainly,  that  they  have 
numberless  correligionists  in  far-off  Tartary,  unless  they  choose 
themselves  to  worship  the  idol  Buddha. 

And  this  is  so  true  that  in  the  most  ancient  religious  buildings 
of  the  sect,  the  subterranean  rock  temples  of  Bombay,  chiefly  the 
gigantic  one  of  Salsette,  together  with  the  worship  of  Buddha, 
that  of  Siva,  the  god  destroyer,  is  plainly  indicated  in  the 
numerous  reliefs  of  the  adjacent  temple  of  Monpeser.  The 
correlation  of  both  was  so  surprising  to  the  first  investigators  of 
those  antiquities  who  firmly  believed  in  the  perpetual  antago- 
nism, from  the  start,  of  JELindooism  and  Buddhism,  that  they 
thought  they  had  found  a  strange  case  of  two  hostile  creeds 
consenting  to  exist  near  each  other  in  harmony.  But  it  is 
known  to-day  that  even  in  Thibet  the  triumphant  Lainaism 
feels  no  opposition  to  the  worship  of  Siva,  whose  adepts  are 
numerous  in  the  country,  and  join  together  the  belief  in  nir- 
vana, and  the  adoration  of  the  great  symbol  of  destruction  in 
Hindostan. 

Even  in  the  rock  temple  of  Elephanta,  near  Salsette,  where 
the  Trimourti  begins  to  appear,  Siva,  however,  being  evidently 
the  chief  god,  Buddha  is  also  represented,  according  to  Lang- 
les — a  very  competent  French  authority.  And  it  is  worthy  of 
mention  here  that  the  Lingam,  in  every  possible  form,  shocks 
the  eyes  of  the  beholder ;  so  that  those  who  have  seen  only  the 
plates  of  Langles,  150  in  number,  say  that  "  the  obscenity  dis- 
played on  the  walls  surpasses  everything  that  the  most  de- 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  159 

praved  European  fancy  could  possibly  imagine." — Monuments 
anciens  et  modernes  de  1'Inde.  Paris,  1813. 

These  temples  belong  to  the  primitive  great  architecture  of 
Hindostan  ;  so  that  nothing  has  remained  of  the  edifices  raised 
in  Vedic  and  following  times,  so  far  down  as  the  sixth  century 
before  Christ.  The  country  where  they  are  found,  so  distant 
from  the  native  place  of  the  sect,  is  the  only  one  in  India  where 
remains  of  Buddhist  buildings  are  met  with,  if  we  except  those 
of  Ceylon,  just  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  peninsula.  It  is 
now  ascertained  that  in  this  island  the  strange  religion  of  Gau- 
tama is  far  later  in  time ;  and  it  is  from  it  that  the  worship  of 
Buddha  spread  all  over  the  country  beyond  the  Ganges :  China, 
Thibet,  and  some  of  the  large  islands  of  those  distant  seas ;  par- 
ticularly Java,  into  which  it  penetrated  only  between  the  tenth 
and  twelfth  centuries  of  our  era. 

Buddhism  is,  therefore,  an  Hindoo  sect,  and  nothing  else,  con- 
temporaneous with  the  origin  of  pure  idolatry  in  the  country, 
but  an  offshoot  of  the  atheistic  and  pantheistic  Sankya  philoso- 
phy. This  is  positively  ascertained.  How  it  disappeared  from 
India  proper  is  yet  an  unsolved  problem.  Was  there  a  long 
struggle  between  the  new  sect  and  the  old  Brahminism,  as  it  is 
generally  supposed  ?  And  was  the  exclusion  of  the  new  heresy 
the  end  of  that  struggle,  as  all  until  lately  believed  ?  It  seems 
reasonable  to  answer  this  last  question  affirmatively,  as  Brahmin- 
ism  must  have  undoubtedly  resisted  the  preponderance  of  a  sys- 
tem destructive  of  castes,  which  do  not  exist  properly  in  Buddh- 
ism. Yet  the  literature  of  Hindostan  says  absolutely  nothing 
on  the  subject ;  and  the  existing  monuments  common  to  both 
seem  to  point  in  a  contrary  direction.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
in  India  the  worship  of  Buddha  and  that  of  Siva  is  indivisible ; 
yet  worshippers  of  Siva  belong  often  to  the  Brahmin  caste. 

But  —  we  must  insist  on  this  —  what  a  fearful  degeneracy 
from  previous  doctrines  prevalent  in  the  country  \  How  differ- 
ent the  language  of  the  first  Vcdas,  and  the  utterances  of  the 
12 


160  GENTTLISM. 

new  doctors  !  What  lias  become  of  tlie  sublime  monotheism 
preached  with  such  impressive  eloquence  ?  How  have  tho 
noble  patriarchal  manners  of  the  nation  been  replaced,  where- 
ever  Buddhism  prevailed,  by  the  unnatural  and  ungodlike  celib- 
acy of  myriads  of  deluded  beings  intent  only  on  annihilation  ! 
The  most  rigorous,  austere,  but  at  the  same  time  vulgar  and 
gross  kind  of  life  is  strictly  insisted  on,  as  the  chief  condition 
for  reaching  "the  other  side  of  the  road,"  that  is  to  say,  a  state 
of  absolute  non-existence,  free,  at  least,  from  the  burden  of 
further  transmigration ! 

And  as  the  worship  of  Siva  was,  at  the  beginning,  intimately 
connected  with  the  sect  —  we  do  not  know  precisely  how ; 
as  both  are  yet  connected  in  Thibet,  with  all  the  apparent  aus- 
terity of  manners  prevailing  in  that  country — it  is  indeed  sur- 
prising that  the  most  flagrant  and  abandoned  immorality  has  not 
yet  eaten  up  the  miserable  nations  bowed  down  under  the  yoke 
of  those  errors.  The  only  explanation  which  can  be  given  is, 
that  human  nature,  with  all  its  failings,  is  yet  better  than  the 
absurd  theories  which  try  to  degrade  it ;  and  the  Providence  of 
God  does  not  allow  one-third  of  the  human  race  to  be  plunged 
irremediably  in  the  mire  of  the  most  foul  superstitions. 

One  feature  of  Buddhism  chiefly  has  helped  to  prevent  it 
from  corrupting  altogether  the  nations  it  keeps  in  darkness.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  genuine  benevolence  it  has  always  preached  in 
the  midst  of  the  most  immoral  principles.  The  nations  where 
Buddhism  prevail,  chiefly  the  Thibetan,  are  'composed  of  two 
classes  of  persons ;  the  largest  number  seem  to  give  up  the 
hope  of  nirvana  on  account  of  the  austere  life  required  of 
those  who  aim  at  it.  But  another,  large,  certainly,  in  many 
countries,  professes  the  accomplishment  of  the  harsh  austerities 
practised  at  first  by  Gautama  himself,  and  imposed  on  all  thoss 
who  wish  to  escape  future  transmigration.  They  live  in  monas- 
teries, practise  strict  celibacy,  dress  very  poorly,  and  subject 
themselves  to  a  life  compared  to  which  that  of  a  Christian 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN   HINDOSTAN.  161 

monk  is  pleasant  indeed.  Yet  some  travellers  have  tried  to 
identify  Buddhism  with  Christianity,  or  rather  to  degrade 
Christianity  by  the  mere  comparison.  But  both  this  class  of 
people  living  in  monasteries,  and  the  larger  one  of  those  who 
remain  in  the  world,  are  enjoined  to  practise  unbounded  be- 
nevolence toward  all  living  beings,  not  men  and  women  only, 
without  exception  of  nationality  and  religion,  but  even  toward 
senseless  animals,  even  ferocious  beasts,  which  are  scarcely 
allowed  to  be  killed  in  self-defence.  Moreover,  benevolence, 
or  as  we  might  say,  charity,  patience,  courage,  even  self-abase- 
ment almost  akin  to  Christian  humility,  and,  what  is  yet  more 
surprising,  purity  of  morals,  and  the  greatest  restraint  on  the 
senses  as  being  often  causes  of  sin,  are  openly  advocated.  Tet, 
all  this  is  not  to  be  accomplished  because  God  commands  it, 
and  threatens  punishment  on  the  evil-doers,  but  merely  as  a 
means  of  attaining  annihilation  in  the  next  world,  or,  at  least, 
of  preparing  a  glorious  and  happy  transmigration.  An  urgent 
motive,  likewise,  for  those  deluded  people  is  the  example  of 
Gautama  himself,  who  practised  those  virtues,  they  say,  during 
his  life,  and  recommended  them  to  his  followers  after  his  death. 
In  fact,  he  is  for  them  God,  since  they  acknowledge  no  superior 
one,  except  the  strict,  fatal,  irresistible,  and  unavoidable  "  con- 
catenation of  causes  and  effects." 

We  repeat,  however,  that  for  the  great  mass  of  those  nations, 
the  ritual  of  the  worship  is  the  chief  object  of  Iheir  religious 
life,  and  this  ritual  is  altogether  pagan.  The  admirers  of  those 
eastern  atheistic  "  philosophers  "  try  their  best  to  insist  that  the 
ritual  is  merely  commemorative,  and  they  do  not,  they  say,  adore 
the  Buddha,  nor  the  objects  before  which  they  prostrate  them- 
selves ;  but  they  do  this  in  honor  merely  of  the  founder  of  their 
religion,  whom  they  believe  incarnated  in  the  living  representa- 
tive before  their  eyes.  We  answer,  that  for  the  mass  of  the 
people,  such  a  commemorative  worship  is  impossible.  They 
adore  in  fact  what  is  before  them,  and  their  earnest  prayers  are 


1G2  GESTTILISM. 

addressed  to  tliii  miserable  impostor  who  personates  their  Gau- 
tama. "  It  is  improbable,"  they  say,  "  that  the  original  scheme 
of  Buddhism  contemplated  either  the  adoration  of  the  statues 
of  the  Buddha,  or  the  offering  of  prayers  to  him  after  his  death. 
These  are  an  after-growth,  an  accretion  upon  the  simple  scheme 
of  Gautama,  and  in  a  manner  forced  upon  it  during  its  struggle 
with  other  religions."  This  may  be  so,  and  the  founder  him- 
self, whoever  he  may  be,  might  not  have  intended  to  originate 
an  idolatrous  sect,  since  he  was  himself  an  atheist.  But  so  it 
has  turned  out  to  be ;  and  we  speak  of  what  exists,  not  of  what 
was  the  first  project,  if  there  was  one.  But  the  hold  of  that 
truly  detestable  superstition  upon  the  many  millions  of  Mongo- 
lians and  East  Indians  is  truly  incredible,  and  can  be  understood 
only  by  those  who  have  witnessed  it. 

Last  century  a  Catholic  Bishop,  missionary  at  Ava,  in  the 
Birman  Empire,  whose  name  we  cannot  now  ascertain,  having 
asked  a  Buddhist  priest  for  some  short  treatise  on  the  doctrines 
of  Gautama,  received  a  compendious  manuscript,  which  stated 
that  the  founder  of  the  sect  had  died  2362  years  before — a 
remarkable  coincidence  with  the  dicovery  made  by  Mr.  Eugene 
Bumouf — and  which  contained  the  chief  points  of  Buddhism 
as  we  know  them.  But  imagine  the  surprise  of  the  bishop,  who 
had  left  country  and  friends  to  convert  the  Burmese,  reading 
the  following  address  by  which  the  manuscript  ended  : 

"  Revolving  these  things  in  your  mind,  O  ye  English,  Dutch, 
Armenians,  and  others,  adore  Gautama,  the  true  god;  adore  also 
his  law  and  his  priests.  Be  solicitous  in  giving  alms,  in  the 
observance  of  Slla  (which  prepare  for  nirvana),  and  in 
performing  Havana  (by  which  the  utter  misery  of  life  is 
acknowledged).  .  .  .  You  have  obtained,  O  Bishop,  a  great 
favor,  having  been  thought  worthy,  although  born  in  one  of 
the  small  islands  depending  on  Zdbudiba,  to  come  hither  and 
to  hear  the  truth  of  the  divine  law.  This  book  is  more  worthy 
of  esteem  than  gold  and  silver,  than  diamonds  and  precious 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  1G3 

stones,  and  I  exhort  all  English,  Dutsh,  Armenians,  and  others 
to  act  up  to  it." 

Max  Miiller  in  a  short  lecture  on  "  Buddhism,"  to  the  surprise 
of  many,  tries  to  create  a  very  different  impression.  Carried 
away  by  his  feelings  in  favor  of  a  ss?t  which,  in  his  opinion, 
practises  charity  with  as  much  generosity  and  devotedness  as 
Christianity  itself,  he  endeavors  to  vindicate  it  from  the  two 
damnable  doctrines  of  atheism  and  annihilation;  but  he  is 
obliged  to  confess  that  on  both  points  Eugene  Burnouf — and  he 
might  have  added  with  him  all  other  actual  writers  on  Buddh- 
ism— is  against  him.  He  himself  quotes  a  passage  of  a 
Buddhist  book  of  great  authority,  in  which  the  invention  of 
the  existence  of  God — Brahma  (neuter) — is  attributed,  as  a 
piece  of  imposture,  to  Brahmin  priests,  and  is  openly  rejected  as 
false,  so  that  Max  Miiller  himself  cannot  save  Buddhism  from 
the  imputation  of  pure  atheism.  Of  nirvana  he  is  more  confident 
that  he  can  explain  it  away.  But  all  he  can  say  consists  in  this, 
that  the  common  people  of  Buddhist  countries  do  not  consider 
it  as  real  annihilation,  but  as  an  Elisian  Paradise  where  every 
good  thing  is  enjoyed.  This  is  very  possible  ;  and  we  believe 
it,  since  Mr.  Miiller  affirms  it.  The  only  conclusion  we  draw 
from  it  is,  that  the  poor  people  of  those  countries  are  the  dupes 
of  knaves  who  know  well  the  meaning  of  their  books,  but  would 
be  afraid  of  the  complete  desertion  of  the  great  mass  of  the 
population  if  they  spoke  openly. 

As  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of  whom  Mr.  Miiller 
speaks,  not  the  same  as  the  one  we  previously  mentioned,  who 
lately  published  a  work,  altogether  in  praise  of  the  manners 
of  the  nation,  in  the  midst  of  which  he  has  lived  a  long  time  ; 
we  can  admit  all  he  says,  and  not  change  our  mind  on  Buddhism, 
because  the  Bishop  spoke  of  the  good  life  of  many  of  these  poor 
deluded  men ;  but  said  nothing  in  praise  of  the  real  doctrine 
which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  imposture. 


164  GENTILISM. 


X. 


This  short  history  of  Buddhism  has  showed  us  already,  as 
contemporary  with  its  origin,  the  idolatrous  worship  of  Siva,  if 
not  of  the  whole  Hindoo  Trimourti.  We  are,  therefore,  natu- 
rally brought  down  a  step  further,  and  have  to  speak  briefly  of 
the  introduction  in  Hindostan  of  pure  idolatry — that  is,  the 
worship  of  the  works  of  man,  as  the  Book  of  Wisdom  has  it.  It 
began  certainly  long  after  the  Vedic  times,  and  must  have  been 
gradually  derived  from  the  pantheistic  doctrine  of  the  Sankya 
philosophy,  joined  with  the  previous  Vedic  rites  and  ceremo- 
nies, which  finally  became  altogether  misunderstood  and  misap- 
plied. Then  poetry,  as  in  Greece,  completed  the  work.  It  is,  in 
fact,  acknowledged  generally  that  the  whole  jumble  of  Hindoo 
mythology  is  the  offspring  of  Sanscrit  literature,  as  the  history 
of  the  gods  in  Greece  came  from  the  fertile  brain  of  Hesiod, 
and  chiefly  Homer. 

Herodotus  tells  us  plainly  that  the  mythology  of  his  own 
country  was,  in  his  time,  no  more  than  four  hundred  years  old, 
and  had  been  fabricated  by  the  epic  poets. 

It  is  true  that  the  poetry  of  the  Hindoos  was  much  earlier 
than  the  strictly  idolatrous  period.  It  is  natural  to  the  race, 
and  existed  among  them  from  the  very  beginning.  With  them 
private  conversation,  even,  is  poetical,  which  would  be  intolera- 
ble among  us.  And  their  very  digest  of  law,  the  code  of  Menu, 
is  a  highly  imaginative  production.  It  is  said  they  have  no 
historians  ;  yet  they  have,  but  of  their  own  fashion.  An  his- 
torian, in  their  idea,  ought  not  to  be  simply  a  cold  narrator  of 
events,  but  chiefly  an  embroiderer  of  facts.  Rather  facts,  sim- 
ple facts,  do  not  exist  for  them.  They  are  accustomed  to  look 
at  them,  when,  they  occur,  under  the  most  brilliant  prismatic 
colors ;  much  more  do  they  appear  so  to  them  long  after  they 
have  taken  place.  Hence  their  historians  became  epic  poets. 


ABOKIGLtfAL    EELIGION   IN    HLNDOSTAN.  165 

But  something  ought  to  be  said  of  their  preparation  for  it ; 
since  the  great  authors  of  the  Ramayana  and  Mahabharata 
did  not,  and  could  not,  appear  directly  after  the  compilation  of 
the  Yedas  was  finished.  A  long  interval  of  time  was  evidently 
required. 

First,  the  great  truths  of  their  primitive  religion,  the  tradi- 
tions they  had  received  with  the  rest  of  mankind,  the  solemn 
rites  embracing  all  the  elements  of  nature  as  dedicated  to  the 
service  of  God,  were  not  to  remain  in  the  strict  line  of  ortho- 
doxy, since  there  was  not  among  them  any  central  power  in- 
vested with  spiritual  authority  to  restrain  every  attempt  of 
private  thought  from  corrupting  the  original  purity  of  their 
creed.  Hence,  as  was  seen  of  two  great  dogmas  in  particular, 
pure  monotheism  gradually  merged  into  a  broad  and  elevated 
pantheism  at  first,  before  reaching  the  scattered  state  of  mere 
forces  of  nature  ;  and  the  necessity  of  expiation  for  the  soul 
took  easily  the  shape  of  almost  endless  transmigration.  From 
these  two  errors  the  majority  of  those  which  followed,  can  easily 
be  derived. 

But  the  great  "  universal  soul,"  the  brilliant  array  of  mate- 
rial beings  concerned  in  "  sacrificial  rites :"  fire,  air,  the  dawn, 
the  magnificent  vault  of  heaven,  etc.,  could  not  but  take  indi- 
vidual shapes  in  the  imagination  of  the  Hindoo,  and  thus  the 
spiritual  world  became  inhabited  by  a  multitude  of  "  devatas," 
which  in  course  of  time  could  not  but  be  changed  into  real  indi- 
vidual "  gods."  Brahma  himself,  the  "  universal  soul,"  could 
not  remain  in  his  single  blessedness ;  but  as  creator,  preserver, 
and  destroyer,  naturally  was  transformed  in  the  "  Trimourti." 

How  did  the  idea  originate  among  them,  that  some  deity 
ought  to  take  a  human  shape  and  "  dwell  among  us  ?"  We 
cannot  say.  Perhaps  it  was  derived  from  the  primitive  tradi- 
tion about  the  One  who  was  "  to  crush  the  head  of  the  serpent." 
Perhaps  it  was  merely  the  result  of  an  exuberant  fancy.  But 
in  their  ideas  of  propriety  it  was  not  the  head  of  the  Trimourti, 


166  GENTILISM. 

so  dignified  in  himself,  nor  the  third  member  of  it,  the  god 
of  destruction,  which  could  undertake  a  mission  of  salvation ; 
the  second  one, Vishnu,  the  preserver,  was  therefore  to  be  the  "  in- 
carnate god  ;"  and  as  the  Hindoos  cannot  understand  moderation 
in  fancy,  as  many  as  ten  "  avatars  "  of  the  god  are  known  in 
their  poetry.  The  Sankya  philosophy,  with  its  austere  doctrine 
of  contempt  of  life  and  aspiration  toward  "  deliverance  ;"  nay, 
the  very  extreme  and  absurd  result  of  that  philosophy,  the  aim- 
ing at  complete  destruction  by  the  nirvana  of  Buddhism,  had  a 
strong  poetical  side  which  the  Hindoos  could  not  leave  unem- 
ployed ;  and  thus  their  first  great  architectural  art  was  all  in 
honor  of  Buddha  and  Siva. 

This  was  the  real  origin  of  idolatry  among  them.  Hence 
the  horrible  idol  of  Siva,  the  obscenity  of  its  images,  together 
with  the  unimpassioned,  total  apathy  of  the  long  face  of  Buddha, 
plunged  in  deep  meditation,  and  looking  vacantly  into  the 
void  of  nothingness,  are  the  first  mythological  emblems  oifered 
by  the  poets  of  the  period  to  the  adoration  of  the  wretched 
native  of  Hindostan.  How  fallen  from  his  first  state  !  Let 
the  loathsome  remains  of  the  astonishing  rock  temples  of  Ele- 
phanta  and  Salsette  speak  to  the  eyes,  since  no  poem  of  that 
epoch  has  yet  been  found  to  astonish  our  awe-struck  imagina- 
tions.* 

Bat  this  was  too  horrible  to  last.  Hence  the  critics  who 
have  studied  most  successfully  Sanscrit  literature,  tell  us,  that 
the  worship  of  Siva,  and  of  Buddha  consequently,  since  both 
appear  always  connected  together  in  the  really  primitive  monu- 
ments of  Hindostan,  had  to  give  way  to  that  of  Yishnu,  less 
disgustingly  sensual,  and  of  far  milder  and  gentler  type.  They 

*  It  seems  that,  during  that  period,  the  Sanscrit  was  not  the  idiom  of 
lapidary  style,  since  Niebuhr,  who  first  described  those  wonderful  monu- 
ments, has  published  long  inscriptions  found  there,  totally  unintelligible 
to  Sanscrit  scholars.  There  ia  here,  we  think,  the  germ  of  a  great  dis- 
covery. 


ABOEIGIXAL    RELIGION    IN   HINDOSTAN.  167 

speak  of  two  sects,  those  of  Siva  and  of  Vishnu,  struggling 
together  for  long  ages,  until  the  last  conquered,  and  has  ever 
since  remained  by  far  the  most  numerous  in  India. 

The  brilliant  authors  at  last  appeared  who  were  to  celebrate 
for  ever  the  names  of  a  multitude  of  gods,  worthy  rivals  of 
those  of  Homer  and  his  compeers,  and  the  ever-gushing  well- 
spring  of  an  art  so  well  described  by  the  author  of  the  Book  of 
Wisdom. 

Before  speaking  with  some  details  of  that  luxuriant  mythol- 
ogy of  the  Far-Orient,  a  word  ought  to  be  said  on  the  precise 
epoch  when  this  downward  step  in  morality  and  intelligence 
took  place  among  the  Hindoos.  "We  shall  be  surprised  to  find 
that  it  was  exactly  at  the  time  of  their  highest  culture,  of  the 
most  brilliant  civilization  for  them,  as  the  word  goes. 

Mr.  Hodgson  and  Eugene  Burnouf  are  indeed  to  be  called 
two  great  benefactors  of  mankind,  since  they  have  positively 
ascertained  a  date  most  important  for  the  establishment  of  a 
sound  doctrine :  the  first  in  discovering  the  documents,  and  the 
second  in  deciphering  them.  Buddhism  is  not  older  than  six 
or  seven  hundred  years  before  Christ ;  this  the  Xepaulese 
manuscripts  assert,  and  the  Burmese  likewise  which  belong  to 
the  Ceylon  or  Pali  class  of  manuscripts. 

But,  by  the  common  consent  of  all  intelligent  travellers  and 
antiquaries,  the  Buddhist  monuments  in  the  Bombay  Presidency 
are  incontestably  the  oldest  of  any  architectural  remains  that 
exist  in  the  country.  At  that  epoch,  certainly,  the  various 
incarnations  of  Yishnu  were  unknown.  Siva,  known  undoubt- 
edly, was  not  an  "  incarnate  god,"  except,  it  seems,  in  much 
later  times,  when  he  had  one  or  two  avatars.  Siva,  therefore, 
at  the  time  was  merely  an  emblem,  a  revolting  emblem  cer- 
tainly, of  cruelty  and  lust.  Buddha,  at  that  same  epoch,  was 
ascertained  to  have  been  Gautama,  a  great  man,  but  merely  a 
man,  the  son  of  a  Rajah  on  the  borders  of  Oude  and  jSTepaul. 
None  of  the  numerous  attendants  sculptured  on  the  monuments 


168  GENTILISM. 

could  be  "incarnate  gods,"  since  avatars  were  as  jet  unimagined. 
These  statues,  consequently,  could  not  have  the  sanctity  which 
those  of  Yishnu,  in  the  shape  of  Rama,  or  of  Krishna,  subse- 
quently possessed,  in  the  eyes  of  the  Hindoos. 

We  may,  therefore,  safely  conclude  that,  although  pure 
idolatry  had  already  begun  to  a  certain  extent,  and  many,  no 
doubt,  adored  really  Siva  with  his  "  collar  of  human  skulls," 
and  his  other  unmentionable  emblems,  yet  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  word,  pure  idolatry  existed  only  in  an  inchoate  state.  The 
pretended  sanctity  of  sculptured  or  pictured  representations, 
which  was  afterwards  supposed  to  exist,  and  which  formed  the 
only  sure  ground  of  real  idolatry,  could  not  yet  have  entered 
fully  into  the  mind  of  the  worshippers. 

The  conclusion  of  it  all  is,  that  the  poems  of  Ramayana  and 
Mahabharata  are  not  nearly  as  old  as  the  sixth  century  before 
Christ,  namely,  about  the  age  of  Lycurgus  at  Sparta ;  and  they 
alone  have  actually  introduced  in  the  country  idolatry  based  on 
mythology.  The  rock  temples  at  Ellora,  in  Central  Hindostan, 
were  surely  constructed  after  the  period  of  the  composition  of 
the  great  epic  poems,  since  most  of  the  episodes  narrated  in 
those  compositions  are  sculptured  on  the  walls ;  but  the  Buddh- 
istic system  had  already  ceased  to  exist  in  the  country,  as 
there  is  not  a  single  sign  of  it  on  those  monuments.  Artists, 
besides,  and  antiquaries  easily  recognize  a  much  earlier  style  of 
art  in  the  temples  of  the  neighborhood  of  Bombay.  The 
ruins  at  Ellora,  consequently,  and  the  Ramayana  and  Mahabha- 
rata,  are  certainly  much  later  than  the  sixth  century  before 
our  era;  and  they  give  the  first  certain  indications  of  pure 
idolatry  in  Hindostan.  Buddhism,  which  preceded  it,  was  a 
pure  atheistic  philosophical  system,  although  it  culminated  like- 
wise ultimately  in  Sivaic  idolatry,  and  was  from  the  beginning 
associated  with  the  image  of  Siva  and  its  detestable  emblems. 

From  that  epoch,  temples  or  pagodas,  as  they  are  called, 
began  to  be  constructed  above  the  ground,  and  not  to  be  hewn. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    ILTNDOSTA^.  169 

out  of  the  hard  rock  under  its  surface.  And  in  all  those  monu- 
ments, whose  ruins  may  be  said  to  cover  now  the  country,  the 
same  stories  are  repeated  which  were  first  celebrated  in  the 
great  epic  poems,  or  in  the  episodes  elaborated  later  from  them 
in  the  puranas  or  tantras.  And  the  most  rank  and  abominable 
idolatry  has  certainly  prevailed,  and  prevails  yet,  over  the  whole 
peninsula.  Everywhere  it  is  the  Trimourti,  and  Siva,  and  Vishnu, 
and  all  the  stories  connected  with  the  "  avatars  "  or  incarnations 
of  this  last  god. 

It  is  important,  therefore,  to  say  a  word  of  the  Ramayana 
and  the  Alahabharata,  out  of  which  two  poems  has  issued  an 
exhaustless  stream  of  incredible  superstitions.  The  Ramayan# 
is  thought  to  be  the  oldest,  is  certainly  the  finest,  and  according 
to  Sanscrit  scholars  merits  to  be  compared  with  the  Iliad  of 
Homer.  It  can  be  read  easily  through,  since  it  contains  only 
thirty  thousand  verses ;  and  there  are  in  it  certainly  great 
literary  beauties.  But  what  gave  it  its  subsequent  importance 
in  the  religion  of  the  country  is  the  poetical  halo  it  throws 
around  the  incarnation  of  Vishnu  in  Rama,  ^ishnu,  or  God 
as  Preserver,  became  Rama,  a  mere  mortal,  and  henceforth  his 
history  could  be  sculptured  or  painted  on  walls  and  canvas, 
and  men  began  to  adore  the  works  of  the  statuary  or  painter. 
Thus,  according  to  the  Book  of  Wisdom,  '<  the  creatures  of  God 
were  turned  to  an  abomination  and  a  temptation  to  the  souls  of 
men,  and  a  snare  to  the  feet  of  the  unwise."  And  thus,  "  by 
the  vanity  of  men  idols  came  into  the  world.  .  .  .  And  in  pro- 
cess of  time,  wicked  custom  prevailing,  this  error  was  kept  as  a 
law ;  and  statues  were  worshipped  by  the  commandment  of 
tyrants."  (Wisdom,  Chap,  xiv.) 

Poetry  and  art  were,  therefore,  the  origin  of  pure  idolatry  in 
Hindostan,  as  they  were  in  Greece ;  and,  in  both  countries,  this 
happened  at  about  the  same  time,  and  during  an  age  of  advanced 
civilization  and  most  luxurious  living.  The  primitive  clanship  of 
heroic  times  had  given  way  in  Greece  to  numerous  aristocracies 


170  GENTILISM. 

bearing  the  name  of  free  States ;  and  in  India  the  tribal  system 
of  the  V^edic,  that  is,  patriarchal  period,  was  succeeded  by  the 
already  extensive  Empires  of  Ayodhya  and  Mathura.  In  Greece, 
during  what  is  called  the  barbarous  epoch,  the  prevailing 
religion  was  to  a  great  extent  monotheistic,  as  will  be  illustrated 
later.  But  great  poets  introduced  all  the  gods  of  mythology, 
worshipped  later,  in  the  period  of  the  highest  culture  and  refine- 
ment. Precisely  the  same  thing  happened  in  Hindostan, 
and  at  about  the  same  time,  as  is  evident  from  the  ascertained 
origin  of  Buddhism. 

O 

The  great  Mahabharata  poem,  far  inferior  to  the  Ramayana 
in  point  of  style  and  interest — of  an  interminable  length,  for  it 
contains  one  hundred  thousand  verses,  evidently  the  work  of 
several  authors,  and  on  that  account  altogether  episodical — is  yet 
of  extreme  importance  on  account  of  the  varied  matter  con- 
tained in  it;  on  which  account  it  may  bear  the  name  of 
Encyclopaedia,  as  well  as  on  account  of  the  fanciful  details 
of  mythology  it  contains.  It  became,  therefore,  together  with 
the  Ramayanaj  the  great  source  of  delusion  for  the  people  of  a 
great  country — a  delusion  the  more  remarkable  because  of  the 
great  respect  which  continued  to  be  paid  to  the  venerable  Yedas, 
which  are  everywhere  spoken  of  in  the  poems  as  the  true  source 
of  pure  religion.  Hence  the  Brahmins  themselves,  those  per- 
petual readers  of  the  primitive  religious  books,  having  at  the 
same  time  their  imagination  full  of  the  impure  fancies  of  the 
Ramayana,  forgot  altogether  the  true  sense  of  the  old  worship, 
and  became  as  degraded  idolaters  as  the  populace  itself,  and 
intent  only  on  the  exterior  rites  of  worship. 

The  corruption  of  morals  which  naturally  followed  the  intro- 
duction of  impure  emblems,  could  not  but  increase  the  degrada- 
tion of  intellect  which  always  accompanies  lust.  It  has  been 
already  remarked  that  the  lingam  never  appears  in  the  Vedic 
period,  and  that  it  came  into  Hindostan  with  the  worship  of 
Siva.  The  same  we  shall  have  occasion  to  remark  of  Egypt, 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    IN    HINDOSTAN.  171 

where  the  phallus  is  never  seen  in  the  temples  of  Ethiopia ; 
and  nothing  can  better  explain  the  degeneracy  of  mind  in  both 
countries  than  the  reckless  profligacy  which  must  have  been 
caused  by  throwing  before  the  eyes  of  every  man,  woman,  and 
child,  yea,  by  placing  constantly  into  their  hands,  as  was  cer- 
tainly the  case  in  Egypt,  the  disgusting  object  known  under 
those  names.  Let  any  one  read  the  description  of  those  im- 
mense processions  of  as  many  as  700,000  people,  related  by 
Herodotus  in  his  second  book,  and  he  will  easily  understand 
how  the  most  austere,  sublime,  and  intellectual  religion  of 
early  ages,  became  the  mass  of  corruption  and  profligacy  which 
any  one  may  witness  who  should  visit  Hindostan,  and  assist  at 
many  of  the  pretended  religious  festivals. 

We  ought  not,  consequently,  to  be  surprised  that  the  worship 
of  animals  became  prevalent  in  India,  as  well  as  in  Egypt.  For 
there  is  no  doubt  that  the  people  adore  there  the  bird  which 
Vishnu  rides,  as  well  as  the  elephant-shaped  Ganesa,  and  the 
ape — Hanuman.  It  is  true  that  the  admirers  of  mythological 
worship  excuse  the  idea  under  the  plea  that  they  are  "  divine 
animals  " — thus  speak  nearly  all  modern  critics.  But  unfortu- 
nately those  "  divine  animals,"  as  objects  of  actual  worship, 
are  far  from  elevating  and  refining  the  ideas  and  habits  of  the 
Hindoo  people.  And  if  we  remember  rightly,  Miss  Maria  Gra- 
ham, in  her  "  Journal  of  a  Residence  in  India,"  complains  that 
those  rites  she  herself  witnessed,  were  far  from  coming  up  to 
the  exalted  ideas  she  had  previously  formed  of  pagan  worship 
as  transmitted  to  us  from  Egypt  and  Greece.  It  is  true  that 
if  the  same  British  lady  had  been  present  at  Bubastis  with 
Herodotus,  in  a  country  where  "  divine  animals  "  were  also  wor- 
shipped ;  and  had  she  seen  what  he  describes  in  his  Second 
Book — "  Euterpe  " — she  might  very  probably  have  experienced 
the  same  disgust,  and  changed  her  opinion  on  the  refining  ele- 
gance of  pagan  rites  of  any  kind.  But  such  is  the  education 
well-bred  people  of  our  day  receive  and  derive  from  their 


172  GENTILISM. 

"  classical  studies."  "We  will  not  certainly  invite  them  to  look 
at  the  plates  given  to  the  public  by  Langles  from  the  rock-tem- 
ples of  Elephanta.  It  is  enough  for  them,  as  well  as  for  us,  to 
remember  the  words  of  Heeren  we  have  already  quoted  on  the 
subject. 

But  we  have  not  yet  reached  the  bottom  of  that  unimagin- 
able corruption  originated  by  the  mythology  of  the  great  poems. 
These  were  to  be  followed  by  the  puranas  and  tantras,  on  which 
our  limits  do  not  allow  us  to  say  more  than  a  word.  Both  are 
now  the  "  main  foundation  of  the  actual  popular  creed  of  the 
Brahminical  Hindoos ; "  and  on  this  account  they  deserve  atten- 
tion. It  is  the  last  term  of  that  "  series"  of  which  we  spoke 
previously,  which  began  by  pure  monotheism,  and  which  ends 
in  the  present  "  abominations  "  of  India. 

It  seems  that  there  were  originally  eighteen  puranas  of  a 
high  antiquity,  of  which  some  Sanscrit  works  of  the  Yedic 
period  speaks.  But  they  have  disappeared ;  and  if  in  the  pura- 
nas now  existing  there  are  any  fragments  or  shreds  of  them 
surviving  their  destruction,  it  is  absolutely  impossible  to  dis- 
tinguish them  and  point  them  out  in  the  modern  compositions. 
The  late  Professor  H.  II.  Wilson,  an  eminent  Sanscrit  scholar, 
who  studied,  edited,  and  translated  the  eighteen  puranas  which 
now  remain,  was  of  opinion  that  the  age  of  their  appearance 
falls  within  the  twelfth  and  seventeenth  centuries  of  our  era, 
with  the  exception  of  one  of  them,  which,  on  account  of  its 
"  unsectarian  character,"  as  the  Professor  expresses  it,  he  would 
place  between  the  ninth  and  tenth.  They  are,  therefore,  quite 
recent.  Yet,  to  a  great  number  of  Brahmins,  they  replace  en- 
tirely the  Yedas,  although  it  is  admitted  by  modern  critics  that 
even  a  slight  examination  and  a  hasty  comparison  of  them  with 
the  ancient  books  containing  the  primeval  lore  of  Hindoo  relig- 
ion and  science,  is  sufficient  to  convince  every  one  that  the 
description  of  religious  life  they  unfold  is  simply  a  misrepre- 
sentation of  that  afforded  by  the  Yedic  literature. 


ABORIGINAL    RELIGION    LN    HINDOSTAX.  173 

Of  their  general  purport  it  is  enough  to  say,  that  some  advo- 
cate the  worship  of  Vishnu,  and  others  that  of  Siva ;  and  sev- 
eral of  them  propose  chiefly  to  the  adoration  of  their  disciples 
the  female  energy  of  the  god  they  place  at  the  head  of  the 
Hindoo  pantheon.  This  is  called  in  Sanscrit  Sakti,  which  is 
generally  translated  by  the  word  "  wife."  But  it  is,  indeed, 
the  god  himself,  originally  hermaphrodite,  as  many  statues  of 
Siva  exemplify,  and  who  is  considered  either  as  male  or  as 
female  by  his  deluded  worshippers.  The  wife,  or  female  en- 
ergy of  Vishnu,  is  called  Sri  or  Lcikshmi  •  and  the  name  of 
that  of  Siva  is  Durga.  In  either  case  it  may  be  called  the 
concentrated  spirit  of  the  particular  deity  under  considera- 
tion, as  the  female  activity  is  known  to  be  more  energetic. 
Thus  to  speak  of  Siva,  Durga  represents  all  the  fury  of  which 
the  god  of  destruction  and  of  lust  is  capable  ;  for  Siva  is,  in- 
deed,/the  diabolical  emblem  of  both.  Durga,  therefore,  is  the 
great  object  and  the  last  term  at  which  all  Hindoo  mythology 
and  religious  rites  must  aim,  and  fatally  terminate.  And  this 
is  the  purpose  of  some  at  least  of  the  puranas. 

But  this  is  the  only,  entire,  and  absolute  purpose  of  the  abom- 
inable tantras,  which  are  yet  oftener  in  the  hands  of  the  mod- 
ern Brahmins  than  the  puranas  themselves.  And  strange  to  say, 
these  books  seem  or  look  to  be  much  older  than  the  actual  pura- 
nas. Everything  appears  to  be  in  favor  of  such  a  supposition. 
Yet  their  name — the  very  word  "  tantra,"  as  a  particular  reli- 
gious work,  is  never  mentioned  except  in  quite  recent  times, 
even  in  Sanscrit  glossaries  of  classical  words.  The  modern 
critics  who  have  examined  them  most  carefully  cannot  account 
for  this  apparent  contradiction.  In  our  opinion,  an  easy  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  is  found  in  the  character  of  those  infamous 
books.  They  must  have  formerly  circulated  secretly,  and  not 
have  been  allowed  to  be  known  except  to  a  few. 

It  is  impoi  tant  to  examine  them  more  closely  than  the  pura- 
nas themselves,  as  thsy  express  in  fact  the  last  phase  of  the 


174  GENTILISM. 

religion  of  Hindostan,  and  prove  truly  more  forcibly  than 
aught  else  could  do,  how  entirely  the  primitive  patriarchal  rites 
of  the  great  Hindoo  nation  were  destroyed  by  polytheism, 
which  is  the  main  object  of  this  chapter. 

Ta/ntra  means,  literally,  an  instrument  or  means  of  faith :  "  It 
is,"  say  the  modern  Sanscrit  lexicographers,  "a  name  given 
to  the  sacred  works  of  the  female  energy  of  the  god  Siva." 
The  underline  is  ours.  The  definition  cannot  be  plainer  and 
more  appropriate.  Siva  is  the  god  of  destruction  and  of  lust. 
The  liugam  is  his  perpetual .  emblem.  His  female  energy — 
Durga — is  the  rage  of  both.  For  rage  expresses  the  maniac 
activity  of  a  furious  woman.  What  can  be  the  sacred  works  of 
such  things  ?  Let  our  reader  imagine  it.  We  cannot  ourselves 
describe  it.  Yet  we  must  say  something  of  it,  however  unwil- 
lingly ;  otherwise  our  very  purpose  would  be  somewhat  frus- 
trated. 

The  tantras  are  books  which  comprise  many  subjects.  Some 
of  these  are,  of  course,  the  creation  and  destruction  of  the 
world ;  the  worship  of  the  gods ;  the  attainment  of  all  objects, 
etc.,  etc.  But  the  chief  one  is  a  long  detail  of  "  magical  rites 
for  the  acquirement  of  six  superhuman  faculties,  and  four 
modes  of  union  with  spirits  by  meditation."  Devil-worship 
and  spiritism  are  already  visible  enough.  The  votaries  of  this 
abominable  religion  are  called  Sacktas,  and  nothing  is  more 
common  than  to  meet  them  everywhere  in  the  country,  chiefly 
in  Bengal.  Many  belong  to  the  Brahminical  class.  But  those 
of  other  castes  are  easily  admitted  to  that  Hindoo  freema- 
sonry which  has  also  for  its  device  something  akin  to  the 
modern  motto,  "  Fraternity,  equality."  They  do  not,  however, 
conceal  themselves  in  our  days,  and  take  good  care  to  besmear 
their  forehead  with  lines  of  red  sandal-wood  or  vermilion,  and 
a  circular  spot  of  red  at  the  root  of  the  nose.  Being  openly 
worshippers  of  the  female  energy  of  Siva,  which  typifies  all 
that  is  excessively  terrific  and  obscene,  our  readers  need  not  be 


ABOEIGINAL    KELIGIOIST   IN   HIND  0  STAN.  175 

told  what  are  their  rites.  They  naturally  lead  to  brutalism, 
and  involve  the  grossest  immorality  of  all  kinds. 

It  seems,  however,  that  there  is  a  limit  to  shamelessness  in 
some  of  those  Brahmins,  since  they  form  two  sects :  the  adher- 
ents to  the  right-hand,  and  the  left-hand,  ritual.  The  first  are 
less  degraded,  and  probably  never  imbrue  their  hands  in  the 
blood  of  innocent  children,  as  many  are  suspected  of  doing. 
Yet  these,  even,  are  known  to  oft'er  blood  without  causing 
death  ;  and  in  the  case  of  animals,  to  sacrifice  annually  num- 
bers of  kids  and  goats,  a  practice  totally  abhorrent  to  the  well- 
known  benevolent  feelings  of  Hindoos  toward  all  living  beings. 
But  the  left-hand  ritual  is  altogether  unmentionable.  A  quota- 
tion from  Professor  Wilson  may,  however,  be  introduced : 
"  All  the  forms  of  the  ritual  require  the  use  of  some  or  all  of 
five  words,  beginning  with  M,  namely  :  Mansa,  Mataya,  Madya, 
Maithuna,  and  Mudra  —  *.  <?.,  flesh,  fish,  wine,  women,  and  ob- 
scene gesticulations."  "But,"  he  adds,  "when  the  object  of 
the  ceremony  is  to  acquire  an  interview  with,  or  control  over, 
impure  spirits,  a  dead  body  is  necessary.  The  adept  is  also  to 
be  alone,  at  midnight,  in  a  cemetery  or  place  where  bodies  are 

burned  and  buried,  or  criminals  executed." We  cannot 

conclude  the  quotation,  which  is  nevertheless  only  a  repetition 
of  the  well-known  diabolical  rites  generally  ascribed  to  the 
devil-worshippers  of  the  middle  ages.  It  is  enough  to  say, 
with  him,  that  "  the  whole  is  terminated  with  the  most  scan- 
dalous orgies  among  the  votaries." 

It  is  strange  after  this,  that  the  learned  Professor  should  pre- 
tend that,  "  In  justice  to  the  doctrines  of  the  sect,  it  is  to  be 
observed,  that  these  practices,  if  instituted  merely  for  sensual 
gratification,  are  held  by  these  sectarians  to  be  as  illicit  and  rep- 
rehensible as  in  any  other  branch  of  the  Hindoo  faith."  We 
will  merely  ask  how  such  "  practices"  as  these  can  be  supposed 
free  from  "sensual  gratification"  of  the  grossest  and  most 

abominable  nature  \ 
13 


176  GENTILISM. 

We  admire  profoundly  the  benevolent  feelings  of  most 
writers  of  our  age  who  always  try  their  best  to  excuse  the 
most  hateful  excesses  of  polytheistic  superstition.  But,  to  us, 
vice  is  vice;  and  pure  devil-worship,  as  this  undoubtedly  is, 
cannot  be  justified  under  any  pretext,  and  must  always  be 
absolutely  condemned  as  the  highest  crime  and  most  horrible 
abomination. 

The  demonstration,  we  hope,  is  complete.  The  progress  in 
India,  from  the  beginning,  has  been  constantly  backwards. 
The  nation  began  with  pure  monotheism,  and  ends  in  deviltry. 
The  noble  picture  of  venerable  rishis  and  patriarchs  living  in 
devout  simplicity  in  the  first  ages,  is  replaced  by  the  ignoble 
aspect  of  degraded  adepts  in  witchcraft  and  the  lowest  super- 
stition ;  and  the  gradual  steps  by  which  this  unfortunate  result 
was  attained,  appear  clear  and  convincing  in  the  whole  history 
of  this  extraordinary  people.  Contrary  to  the  dogmas  of  Dar- 
winism, the  Hindoo  type,  at  first  so  noble  and  almost  godlike, 
has  followed  an  inverse  evolution,  which  might,  if  not  arrested, 
end  in  something  very  like  the  type  of  the  ape  and  gorilla. 
.Not  that  the  physical  features  of  the  species  can,  in  oui 
opinion,  be  radically  changed  even  inversely,  and  become 
those  of  a  quite  different  species,  of  a  much  lower  and  de- 
graded type.  But  morally  the  change  is  almost  equivalent  to 
it ;  and,  in  the  words  of  the  Prophet,  we  might  exclaim : 
"  Quomodo  cecidisti,  Lucifer (,  qui  mane  oriebams  !  '* 

We  will  conclude  this  chapter  with  a  word  or  two  on  a  fea 
ture  remarkable,  certainly,  in  the  actual  idolatry  of  Hindostan. 
In  reading  the  works  of  well-informed  English  travellers,  when 
they  profess  to  describe  the  popular  religion,  one  is  struck  with 
the  constantly-changing  names  of  the  gods  in  passing  from  one 
town  or  village  to  another.  This  is  certainly  very  striking  in 
the  long  and  detailed  account  of  Mysore  and  the  Malabar  coast 
undertaken  by  Buchanan,  at  the  request  of  the  East  India  Com- 
pany, after  the  conquest  of  that  part  of  the  country  by  the 


ABOKIGINAL   EELIGION   IN   HINDOSTAN.  177 

English  and  the  fall  of  Tippoo  Saib.  In  every  village,  as  you 
read,  you  find  the  people  at  the  foot  of  some  idol  altogether 
unknown  to  the  common  Hindoo  mythology.  And  the  names 
of  these  gods  are  seldom  the  same.  So  that  the  conclusion  forces 
itself  upon  the  mind,  that  besides  the  celebrated  deities  wor- 
shipped chiefly  in  large  towns,  there  is  an  infinite  number  of 
inferior  ones  known  only  to  villagers  and  rude  people.  The 
country,  therefore,  has  arrived  to  that  point  of  "individual- 
ism "  in  religion  which  will  strike  us  more  forcibly  when  we 
speak  of  Egypt,  Greece,  and  Italy.  But  of  this  anon. 

The  primitive  religion  of  Central  Asia  being  intimately  con- 
nected with  that  of  Hindostan,  we  had  thought  of  speaking  of 
it  at  the  end  of  this  chapter.  But  on  account  of  its  length  we 
prefer  to  transfer  it  at  the  head  of  the  next.  The  reader  will 
perceive  where  the  natural  connection  lies;  and  the  details 
will  sufficiently  point  it  out. 


CHAPTEE  IY. 
i 

THE  PRIMEVAL  RELIGION,  AND  ITS  DECLINE,  IN  CENTRAL  ASIA  AND  AFRICA. 
SECTION   I. CENTRAL   ASIA. 

A  FEW  years  back,  the  exact  time  of  the  great  "  reform  " 
of  Zoroaster  was  unknown ;  or  rather  the  general  belief  con- 
cerning it  was  incorrect.  Owing  to  several  mistakes  of  previous 
chronologists,  Zoroastrianism  was  thought  *to  be  a  great  deal 
more  recent  than  it  really  is ;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  labors 
and  discoveries  of  several  orientalists  of  our  days,  the  common 
error  could  not  have  been  corrected,  and  the  arguments  we  have 
adduced  in  support  of  the  primitive  monotheism  of  Hindostan 
would  have  been  the  only  «ones  possible.  They  might  have 
sufficed,  certainly,  but  a  more  exact  knowledge  of  Asiatic 
antiquities,  and  the  true  interpretation  of  the  Zend-Avesta, 
enable  us  to  add  to  them  a  much  more  powerful  one,  which  the 
plan  we  have  adopted  will  oblige  us  to  confine  within  as  narrow 
a  compass  as  is  compatible  with  a  satisfactory  exposition  of  it. 

We  have  already  hinted  that  the  Zends  were  hot  Persian 
books,  but  truly  Yedic;  and  that  if  we  still  follow  the  old 
distinction,  and  consider  them  apart,  it  is  merely  for  the  sake 
of  convenience.  We  must,  in  the  first  instance,  establish  this 
truth,  most  important  in  our  present  considerations. 

The  author  of  the  Zend-Avesta,  or  at  least  of  the  oldest  part 
of  it — the  Gathas — since  it  was  compiled,  as  it  would  seem, 
like  the  Yedas,  by  several  authors, — Zoroaster,  or  in  the  old 
spelling,  Zarathustra,  has  himself  described  very  accurately 
the  vast  region  which  is  to  be  now  the  object  of  our  investiga- 
tion. The  Yendidat  begins  by  an  enumeration  of  the  provinces 
(178) 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AXD    AFRICA.  179 

and  chief  cities  governed  by  King  Gustasp — or  rather  Vistagpa, 
according  to  the  correct  orthography — to  whom  the  book  is 
addressed,  and,  indeed,  dedicated.  The  list  includes  all  the 
countries  east  of  the  Caspian  Sea  and  north  of  Hindostan,  with 
the  northern  part  of  this  peninsula,  besides  Azerbijan  west  of 
the  Caspian  Lake.  A  glance  over  the  map  will  show  that  it 
embraced  Khorasan,  Bactriana,  and  Sogdiana,  Cabul,  Lahore, 
and  the  Punjaub,  with  several  other  provinces  of  less  renown. 
Nothing  absolutely  is  said  in  the  book,  either  of  Persia  or  of 
Media  even.  King  Gustasp's — Yistac,pa's — Capital  was  evi 
dently  Bactra.  The  centre  of  his  empire  was  the  country 
included  between  the  Oxus  and  the  Jaxartes.  It  was,  therefore, 
precisely  Central  Asia.  None  of  the  southern  regions  of  the 
continent  belonged  to  it.  Knowing,  as  we  do,  that  the  Yedas 
came  from  the  north  of  Hindostan,  the  remark  is  important. 
The  Yedas,  in  fact,  and  the  Zends  were  literary  productions  of 
the  same  country  almost.  The  Zends,  therefore,  were  not  Per- 
sian books. 


I. 


The  apparent  similarity  of  the  name  of  Gustasp  with  Darius 
Hystaspis,  had  been  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  antiquarians  of  a 
previous  age  to  presume  that  Zoroaster  lived  under  his  reign. 
Yet  many  Greek  writers  had  asserted  that  this  Sage,  whom  they 
all  admired  as  one  of  the  greatest  men  our  world  had  seen, 
belonged  to  an  epoch  far  earlier  than  the  Persian,  or  even  than 
the  Median  dynasties.  Aristotle  went  so  far  as  to  state  that  he 
lived  6000  years  before  his  own  time ;  Xanthus  of  Lydia  was 
therefore  very  moderate  in  placing  him  600  years  before  the 
Trojan  war ;  Berosus  of  Babylon  made  him  a  Babylonian  King 
corresponding  with  an  epoch  equivalent  to  about  2000  years 
before  Christ.  Now  that  the  Zend-Avesta  is  well  known, 
and  has  been  correctly  translated,  the  general  opinion  makes 


180  GEISTTILISM. 

him  at  least  contemporary  with  Moses.  It  is  clear  that  we  have 
here  a  book  of  very  high  antiquity,  and  that  its  doctrines  must 
represent  the  thoughts  of  men  very  near  the  origin  of  our 
species.  It  was  Anquetil  Duperron,  a  Frenchman,  who  first 
brought  a  copy  of  it  to  Europe,  about  the  middle  of  last 
century;  and  although  his  translation  was  very  defective,  owing 
to  the  backwardness  of  philology  at  the  time,  it  produced  an 
immense  sensation.  The  English  promptly  accused  it  of  being 
a  forgery.  The  Germans,  more  equitable,  were  at  first  divided 
in  opinion,  but  Klenker  having  translated  it  into  German,  its 
genuineness  was  generally  admitted  beyond  the  Rhine.  It  is 
Rask,  a  Dane,  who  having  procured  many  Zend  manuscripts  for 
the  Copenhagen  library,  showed  conclusively  the  close  affinity 
between  the  language  of  the  Zends  and  the  Sanscrit.  But  it  is 
again  Mr.  Eugene  Burnouf  who  determined  several  important 
points,  admitted  now  generally  by  all  orientalists,  which  clearly 
show  the  intimate  relation  of  the  Zends  with  the  Yedas, 
establish  the  character  of  the  first  as  a  "  reform  "  intended  to 
bring  back  the  second  to  their  old  pure  monotheism,  and  deter- 
mine many  points  which  we  may  be  allowed  to  set  forth  in 
the  following  catechetical  form  : 

1st.  Is  the  book  really  as  ancient  a  production  as  has  been  just 
stated  ?  It  was  not  certainly  written  so  as  to  circulate,  at  the 
time  mentioned  above  ;  but  was  transmitted  orally,  as  the  Yedas, 
the  Homeric  poems,  the  Talmud,  etc.  At  the  beginning,  undoubt- 
edly, it  was  much  more  voluminous  "than  at  present.  Pliny 
speaks  of  2,000,000  verses  written  by  Zoroaster,  which  must  be 
an  exaggeration  common  enough  with  the  author  of  "  Historia 
Naturalis."  Bat  a  great  part  of  the  work  perished  in  the 
frightful  invasion  of  Omar  in  Persia,  and  what  was  saved  was 
collected  together  only  under  the  Sassanian  Kings,  in  the  third 
century  of  our  era.  These  are  real  difficulties.  Nevertheless, 
the  style  of  a  good  part  of  what  remains  is  truly  Yedic.  "Who- 
ever understands  the  Yedas  will  easily  understand  it.  These 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  181 

books  must  have  been  transmitted  with  the  extreme  precision 
and  caution  always  attached  to  ritual  prayers  ;  for  such  they  arc 
mostly.  We  have,  therefore,  an  authentic,  most  ancient  work. 
The  language  is  somewhat  different  from  the  Sanscrit,  but 
certainly  of  the  same  typs.  The  verses  are  truly  Vedic  verses, 
without  rhyme,  and  with  the  syllables  only  counted.  All 
modern  orientalists  seem  to  agree  on  this  first  point. 

2d.  Is  the  doctrine  of  monotheism  as  clear  in  the  Zends  as 
in  the  Yedas  ?  The  answer  is  plain,  almost  emphatic  :  It  is 
clearer  and  more  precise.  From  many  expressions  of  the 
Zend-Avesta,  it  is  evident  that  the  nation  to  which  Zoroaster 
belonged  had  been  previously  connected  intimately  with 
another  Aryan  nation.  But  a  long  war  had  raged  between  both ; 
enmity  at  the  time  of  Zoroaster  reigned  supreme.  Tho 
chief  cause  of  complaint  on  the  part  of  the  Sage  himself  was, 
that  the  primitive  religion  of  the  people  had  been  corrupted  by 
this  now  hostile  race.  The  pure  worship  of  one  God,  admitted 
at  first  on  both  sides,  had  been  gradually  replaced  by  the  wor- 
ship of  devas,  and  Zoroaster  wished  to  bring  back  his  nation 
to  primeval  monotheism.  Thus  the  Bactrian  patriarch  was 
merely  a  reformer,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word.  From  the 
same  text  it  appears  that,  since  the  introduction  of  corrupt 
worship,  the  people  of  Gustasp  had  been  under  the  guidance 
of  "  fire  priests,"  who  had  established  a  false  religion  known 
under  the  name  of  "  ahura,"  because  inferior  spirits,  called 
"  ahuras,"  wfere  adored  instead  of  the  "  devas  "  of  the  enemy. 
Zoroaster  declared  himself  against  both,  and  proposed  the  wor- 
ship of  Ormuzd — Ahura-Mazda — alone,  which  he  emphatically 
proclaimed  as  the*  old  worship  of  both  nations. 

We  recognize  clearly  in  the  "  devas "  of  the  enemy  the 
"devatas"  honored  in  the  Yedic  sacrifices,  to  which  Zoro- 
aster objected  as  making  mere  creatures  real  "gods."  We 
may  also  conclude  from  this  warm  hostility  the  motive  which 
led  Zoroaster  to  give  to  the  Supreme  God,  not  the  name  of 


182  GENTILISM. 

Brahma,  but  that  of  Ormuzd — Ahura-Mazda.  He  wished  to 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  Hindoo  religion.  And,  moreover, 
the  language  in  which  he  wrote  had  then  become,  to  a  certain 

O          O  ' 

degree,  a  different  one  from  the  Sanscrit  of  the  Yedas,  although 
closely  allied  to  it.  Other  proofs  of  the  Zend  rnonotheisih  will 
presently  be  given.  Before  passing  to  the  next  point,  we  may 
here  repeat  that  India  has  been,  indeed,  the  centre  of  all 
the  religions  of  Asia,  as  Heeren  asserts.  We  have  seen  how 
Buddhism,  which  has  since  prevailed  all  over  the  Far-£ast,  was 
derived  from  the  Hindoo  philosophy.  And,  now,  we  notice 
another  curious  fact :  The  Brahminic  religion  becoming  the 
source  of  the  worship  of  all  Western  Asia,  where  Zoroastrian- 
ism  prevailed  in  the  end,  through  the  Medians  and  Persians, 
in  Assyria,  Babylonia,  and  a  great  part  of  Asia  Minor ;  and  that 
it  might  have  ruled  even  over  a  great  part  of  Europe,  if  Persia 
had  not  been  defeated  by  Greece  at  Marathon  and  Salami  s. 
It  is  even  pretended  by  some  orientalists  that  the  religion  of 
Zoroaster  was  the  true  source  of  the  only  three  great  monothe- 
istic systems,  embracing  nearly  all  the  Semitic  nations :  namely, 
Judaism,  Christianity,  and  Mohammedanism.  But  this  is  an 
evident  error.  And  every  candid  observer  will  easily  acknowledge 
that  neither  Judaism,  nor  chiefly  Christianity,  not  even  Moham- 
medanism, have  taken  their  dogmas  from  the  creed  of  Zoroaster ; 
although  there  is  no  doubt  that  many  truths  contained  in  this 
last,  form  also  a  part  of  the  three  others ;  because  they  are  truths 
coming  from  God,  and  not  because  Zoroaster  originated  them. 
He  insists  himself  on  this:  that  he  is  a  reformer,  not  an  inventor 
of  religion.  The  opinion,  therefore,  of  Sir  William  Jones,  that 
mankind  originated  probably  in  Iran — Pergia — and  that  the 
first  study  to  which  an  orientalist  ought  to  apply  is  that  of  the 
Persian  language,  as  it  is  from  that  country  that  the  truth 
radiated  from  the  beginning,  is  not  substantiated ;  and  the 
very  respectable  founder  of  the  Asiatic  Society  would,  no 
doubt,  have  changed  his  opinion,  had  he  known  what  a 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  183 

more  advanced  study  of  Sanscrit  and  Zend  has  now  demon- 
strated. 

3d.  What  is  the  part  of  monotheism  and  that  of  "  sacrificial 
rites"  in  Zoroaster's  religion  ?  The -answer  is  plain  again  from 
the  late  discoveries  in  the  text  of  the  Zend-Avesta.  There  is 
much  less  room  with  respect  to  both,  for  error  to  creep  in, 
than  in  the  Yedas,  as  we  know  them  ;  and,  consequently,  the 
pantheism,  polytheism,  and  devilish  idolatry  which  invaded 
Hindooism  never  made  inroads  of  such  frightful  import  in  the 
worship  oj:  the  Parsees,  for  Manicheism  can  scarcely  be  con- 
sidered as  a  branch  of  this  religion.  The  imagination  of  the 
northern  tribes,  over  which  Gustasp  ruled,  being  more  sober 
and  guarded,  the  pure  sparks  of  the  heavenly  doctrine  which 
we  have  admired  in  the  Vedas,  were  not  in  Central  Asia  so 
easily  dimmed  by  vague  expressions  containing  seeds  of  manifest 
error.  Hence,  its  monotheism  resembled  much  more  the  true, 
solid,  always  consistent  doctrine  of  the  Hebrew  prophets 
independently  of  their  inspiration.  There  has  been,  however, 
a  great  decline  in  Zoroastrianism,  which  it  will  be  our  duty  to 
notice. 


II. 


The  Divine  Unity  in  the  person  of  Ormuzd — (Ahura-Mazda) 
— and  the  height  of  His  divine  attributes,  are  expressed  in  the 
Gathas — the  most  authentic  part  of  the  Zends — with  a  supreme 
energy  which  cannot  be  misunderstood.  The  multiplicity  of 
passages  which  contain  them,  their  agreement  together,  and  the 
identity  of  interpretation  by  the  most  learned  and  skillful  trans- 
lators, cannot  leave  room  for  hesitation  and  doubt.  The  name 
itself,  Ahura-Mazda  (Ormuzd)  signifies,  according  to  Mr.  Haug, 
(Essays,  p.  256)  the  Living  Creator  of  the  Universe.  The  most 
common  appellations  by  which  He  is  addressed  are  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  the  same  gentleman,  and  of  Mr.  Spiegel,  the  last 


184  OENTILISM. 

translator  of  the  Zends :  "  The  living  God — the  Good  Spirit — 
the  Sublime  Truth — the  Creator  of  Life — the  Essence  of  Truth 
— the  Primordial  Spirit — the  Source  of  Light — the  most  Holy 
Spirit — the  Creator  of  all  that  is  good — the  Author  of  the 
World  and  of  Law — the  most  Powerful  of  Beings.  It  is  He 
who  has  traced  to  the  sun  and  the  stars  their  road  in  the 
heavens ;  it  is  He  who  brings  on  the  increase  and  decrease  of 
the  moon ;  it  is  He  who  has  created  the  earth,  the  ocean,  the 
trees,  etc.,  etc." 

It  is  precisely  thus  that  we  speak  of  God.  Zarathjistra,  since 
his  name  ought,  it  seems,  to  be  thus  spelt,  had  received  from 
tradition  the  true  key-note  of  religious  truth.  He  said,  him- 
self, that  he  had  invented  nothing ;  but  merely  restored  the 
primitive  belief  obscured  by  the  new  worship  of  devas.  In 
him  we  find,  therefore,  a  great  link  of  the  golden  chain,  which 
starting  first  from  the  mouth  of  God,  was  often  on  the  point  of 
being  broken  and  lost,  until  Christ  secured  it  for  us  for  ever, 
by  handing  it  oVer  to  His  infallible  Church.  Evidently  the 
Bactrian  Sage  spoke  as  we  do,  and  believed  as  we  do,  with 
respect  to  God.  He  appeared  when  the  purity  of  doctrine, 
first  contained  in  the  Yedas,  began  to  be  dimmed  by  poetry  and 
imagination ;  and  devatas,  or  devas,  as  he  called  them,  were 
insensibly  personified,  and  turned  into  personal  beings  and 
deities  ;  to  protest  against  this  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  Su- 
preme and  Living  Author  of  the  Universe ;  and  all  the  terms  by 
which  he  expressed  his  essence  and  attributes,  were  precisely 
those  we  employ  ourselves,  and  which  will  be  used  henceforth 
to  the  end  of  time. 

Hear  one  of  the  hymns  of  Zarathustra,  translated  in  German 
by  Mr.  Spiegel,  to  which  Max  Miiller  gave  an  English  dress. 
(It  is  taken  from  Spiegel's  Yasna,  p.  146). 

"  I  ask  Thee  ;  tell  me  the  truth,  0  Ahura  !  Who  was  from 
the  beginning  the  father  of  pure  creatures  ?  Who  has  made 
a  path  for  the  sun  and  for  the  stars?  Who, but  Thou,  makes 


CEXTIIAL    ASIA    A!XD    AFRICA.  185 

the  moon  to  increase  and  to  decrease  ?  That,  0  Mazda,  and 
other  things  I  wish  to  know. 

"  I  ask  Thee ;  tell  me  the  truth,  O  Ahura  !  Who  holds  the 
earth  and  the  clouds  that  they  do  not  fall  ?  Who  holds  the 
sea  and  the  trees  ?  Who  has  given  swiftness  to  the  wind  and 
the  clouds  ?  Who  is  the  creator  of  the  good  spirit  ? 

"  I  ask  Thee  ;  tell  me  the  truth,  O  Ahura !  Who  has  made 
the  kindly  light  and  the  darkness?  Who  has  made  the  kindly 
sleep  and  the  awaking  ?  Who  has  made  the  mornings,  the 
noons,  and  the  nights  ?  Who  has  made  him  who  ponders  on 
the  measure  of  Thy  laws  ?" 

In  perusing  this  passage,  which  is  only  one  of  many,  the  Chris- 
tian may  well  imagine  he  is  listening  to  fresh  strains  of  the  in- 
spired Moses,  Job  or  David  !  With  respect  to  "  sacrificial  rites," 
a  greater  precision  of  language  than  that  of  the  Yedas,  serves  in 
the  Zends  Jo  render  much  less  imminent  the  danger  of  intro- 
ducing polytheism  through  them.  In  the  Tasna  of  the  Zend- 
Avesta,  where  the  five  Gatkas,  of  which  we  just  spoke,  are 
contained,  and  which  treat  of  "sacrifice,"  "devatas"  are  not 
addressed,  as  in  the  Vedas,  and  cannot  so  easily  be  transformed 
into  "  gods."  But  the  ritual  contains  merely  "  prayers  for  the 
consecration  of  holy  water,  of  the  bundle  of  twigs  used  in  the 
rites,  of  the  liquor  extracted  from  the  plant  called  homa — the 
soma  of  Hindostan — or  of  anything  connected  with  the  sacri- 
fice." Thus  it  is  only  a  blessing  bestowed  on  some  object 
which  is  set  apart  for  the  service  of  God,  exactly  as  in  the 
Catholic  ritual  prayers  are  directed  to  be  said  over  water,  oil, 
frankincense,  etc.  And  thus  the  rites  of  Zoroastrianism  be- 
come plain,  and  are  void  of  the  least  danger  of  obscuring  the 
pure  monotheism  advocated  everywhere  in  the  Zends.  For- 
tunately, moreover,  for  our  argument,  their  intimate  connection 
with  the  corresponding  forms  of  the  Yedas,  in  which  we  find 
also  blessings  for  fire,  for  water,  for  the  soma  liquor,  of  which 
we  had  an  occasion  to  speak  previously,  explain  the  original 


186  GENTILISM. 

meaning  of  the  Hindoo  books,  and  show  conclusively  the  truth 
of  our  preceding  remarks  on  those  ritqs,  and  the  appropriateness 
of  our  protest  against  the  translation  of  the  word  "  devata  " 
into  that  of  "  god  ;"  at  least  as  it  was  understood  primitively ; 
and  thus  our  assertion  was  limited.  From  the  need  of  a  "  re- 
form," so  early  as  the  time  of  Zarathustra,  it  seems  the  decline 
to  error  began  sooner  than  we  might  otherwise  have  imagined. 
Yet  it  may  be  supposed  that  the  zeal  of  the  "  reformer  "  was 
kindled  at  the  very  first  innovations,  and  perhaps  at  the  inter- 
pretations the  people  alone  gave  to  "  sacrificial  rites,"  when  the 
pure  Yedic  meaning  was  well  understood  by  the  learned  Brah- 
mins. These,  however,  are  mere  conjectures  on  which  we  do 
not  insist. 

But  we  must  here  introduce  a  few  remarks  on  the  ritual  of 
ancient  religions  in  general,  whether  true  or  false.  In  all  the 
new  forms  given  by  Protestantism  to  Christianity,  the  ritual  is 
absent,  or,  if  there  is  some  remnant  of  it,  it  is  merely  a  shred. 
In  the  old  religions,  it  was  always  extremely  elaborate ;  and 
we  may  say  that  the  older  a  religion  is  the  more  complicated 
is  the  ritual.  Could  this  be  the  effect  of  barbarism  in  man, 
as  everything  old  is  often  considered  as  barbarous  ?  And  is  a 
religion  deprived  of  a  ritual,  on  that  account,  more  refined  and 
true  ? 

The  Jewish  ritual,  given  by  God  Himself,  as  we  firmly  be- 
lieve, is  certainly  very  copious  and  long.  The  Christian  ritual 
in  the  true  Church  is,  undoubtedly,  much  more  simple  and  far 
less  complex.  Authors  generally  attribute  the  difference,  in 
the  first  case  (that  of  the  Jews),  to  the  necessity  of  striking 
their  imagination,  and  obliging  them  to  many  small  observ- 
ances, and  of  thus  opposing  their  proneness  to  idolatry.  It 
might  be  so  in  part.  Yet  it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  the 
rituals  adopted,  from  the  beginning,  by  all  nations  of  antiquity, 
were  all  of  a  very  elaborate  nature,  and  contained  as  many 
apparently  trifling  prescriptions  as  the  one  of  Leviticus.  And 


CENTBAL   ASIA   AJSD   AFEICA.  187 

this  did  not  prevent  them  from  falling  into  many  grievous 
errors.  Xay,  it  was  not  unseldom  the  cause  of  leading  them 
to  polytheism,  as  it  certainly  was  in  the  case  of  the  Hindoos. 
A  reason  more  consonant  with  the  doctrine  of  several  Fathers 
of  the  Church,  and  among  them,  we  think,  St.  Leo  the  Great 
and  St.  Irenaeus.  is  the  difference  of  the  three  dispensations  of 
nature,  law,  and  grace,  which  required  differences  of  worship 
and  rites.  To  our  thinking,  the  patriarchal  religion  adapted 
to  men  who  were,  in  truth,  giants  intellectually,  required 
strong,  vivid,  and  varied  rites,  because  their  powerful^  minds 
must  have  been  swayed  by  a  correspondingly  powerful  imagi- 
nation, which  had  to  be  occupied  with  the  things  of  God  in 
order  to  avoid  the  danger  of  plunging  headlong  into  the  things 
of  this  world,  as  all  did  sooner  or  later.  If  the  Jewish  patri- 
archs, from  Abraham  downwards,  used  much  more  simple 
rites,  they  were  certainly  exceptions  in  the  general  state  of 
things  at  the  time.  Being  frequently  in  direct  communica- 
tion with  Almighty  God,  who  treated  them  as  friends,  and 
whom  they  loved  ardently,  there  was  no  need,  for  them,  of  so 
many  slight  observances  and  prescriptions.  But  there  is  no 
doubt  that,  when  they  lived  on  earth,  all  other  nations  of  Asia 
were  subjected  to  extremely  complicated  religious  rites,  which, 
on  account  of  their  uniformity,  ought  to  be  considered,  in  the 
main,  as  handed  down  to  them  by  primitive  tradition ;  and  the 
only  reason  we  can  assign  for  this  is  the  one  mentioned  above. 

The  Jewish  nation,  according  to  many  Fathers  of  the 
Church,  were  kept  under  a  rigorous  dispensation,  and  bound 
hands  and  feet,  from  morning  to  night,  at  all  hours  of  the  day 
by  observances  of  every  kind,  because  they  were  children 
kept  under  the  rod,  and  trained  to  better  things  by  a  harsh 
treatment  necessary  for  their  long  education. 

But  to  suppose  that  the  dispensation  of  grace,  the  everlast- 
ing and  final  religion  of  Christ,  was  to  leave  us  without  a 
ritual  of  any  kind,  is  to  fall  into  an  egregious  errcr.  Man 


188  GENTILISM. 

wants  it;  and  if  he  emancipates  himself  entirely,  or  almost 
entirely,  from  it,  under  the  pretext  that  we  live  under  the  dis- 
pensation of  love,  and  are  free  from  all  the  'restraints  of  the 
law,  he  is  most  likely,  in  the  course  of  time,  to  forget  God  alto- 
gether, and  to  lose  completely,  not  only  the  exterior,  but  the 
very  spiritual  essence  of  religion.  The  man  who  belongs  to  a 
sect  without  rites,  will  soon  be  practically  without  God ;  be- 
cause, owing  to  the  double  nature  of  man,  prayer  itself  requires 
the  elevation  or  joining  of  the  hands,  the  bending  of  the 
knees,  the  raising  of  the  eyes  to  heaven,  or  other  acts  of  bodily 
worship.  And  all  these  are  real  rites,  and  without  them  prayer 
itself  would  soon  cease  to  exist. 

If  Christ  has  freed  us  from  the  law,  it  is  merely  from  the 
Mosaic  ceremonial  law.  But  He  gave  to  His  Church  a  true 
legislative  power.  And  this  Mother  of  all  true  Christians, 
knowing  their  wants  and  understanding  their  nature,  yet  aware 
of  their  native  weakness,  although  living  under  the  dispensa- 
tion of  "grace"  (which,  according  to  St.  Paul,  was  instituted 
for  men,  and  no  more  for  babes,  as  the  Jews  were),  this  Mother 
Church,  with  the  unlimited  power  given  her  by  Christ,  has, 
from  the  very  beginning,  instituted  rites  which,  with  the  ever- 
increasing  number  of  the  faithful,  have  grown  to  the  imposing 
forms  we  all  know  so  well,  and  we  love  to  witness  daily,  in 
the  ever-recurring  round  of  our  festivals  through  the  Christian 
year. 

And,  although  the  Mosaic  law  is  abolished,  although  the 
patriarchal  religion  has  long  ago  ceased  to  exist,  yet  we  have 
still  many  points  of  similarity  with  the  "men  of  old;"  and  we 
use  yet  all  the  elements  to  praise  our  Creator,  because  we  wor- 
ship the  same  God  and  inhabit  the  same  earth.  Our  Holy 
religion  is  the  true  one ;  and  as  that  of  the  patriarchs  was  in 
the  same  position  in  their  time,  there  must  be  some  points,  at 
least,  of  resemblance  between  both. 

It  is  time  to  return  to  Zoroastrianism,  or  rather  to  Mazdeism, 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  189 

as  it  is  now  called ;  and  we  must  begin  to  adopt  the  general 
way  of  speaking  of  our  contemporaries.  "Was  not  Mazdeism, 
from  the  very  time  of  its  first  expounder,  impregnated  with 
dualism,  and  consequently  not  teaching  pure  monotheism  ? 
To  what  extent  can  this  be  asserted  ?  Mr.  Haug,  who  made  it 
a  point  to  examine  this  question,  thinks  that  dualism  is  cer- 
tainly expressed  in  the  philosophy  of  Zarathustra,  as  distinct 
from  his  religious  teaching.  But  he  openly  refuses  to  believe 
that  in  primitive  Mazdeisnij  Ahura-Mazda,  or  Ormuzd,  had  a 
rival  in  power.  "  An  evil  spirit,"  he  says,  "  distinct  from, 
Ahura- Mazda,  possessing  the  same  power,  and  in  direct  and 
perpetual  opposition  to  Him,  is  a  thing  completely  foreign  to 
Zoroaster's  theology  ;  although  such  an  opinion  among  his  fol- 
lowers may  very  well  be  found,  by  implication  at  least,  in  the 
later  books,  such  as  the  Yendidat."  Mr.  Haug,  however,  ad- 
mits that  in  the  old  Yagna — which,  as  we  saw,  comprise  the 
Gathas,  where  the  authentic  Mazdean  doctrine  is  contained — 
is  found  the  positive  teaching  (very  different  from  the  previous 
one),  "  that  there  are  two  principles,  the  Good  and  the  Evil 
spirit,  the  first  the  only  author  of  Gaya,  entity r,  namely,  all  that 
is  good ;  the  other  the  only  author  of  Ajyditi,  non-entity, 
namely,  all  that  is  bad  ;  both  act  in  the  universe ;  both  were 
together  in  the  origin  of  things,  subsisting,"  Mr.  Haug  says, 
"  in  the  divine  substance  as  they  do  now  in  mortal  beings,  and 
called  the  <  Twins.'  " 

On  account  of  this  discovery,  confirmed  by  Mr.  Spiegel, 
and  of  some  other  texts  which  seem  analogous,  the  mass  of 
orientalists  in  our  days  admit  a  kind  of  real  dualism  in  primi- 
tive Mazdeism,  but  a  very  different  one  from  that  of  the  Zar- 
vanians,  as  Mr.  F.  Lenormant  calls  them.  This  latter  doctrine 
of  dualism  was  "  promulgated  about  the  time  of  Alexander, 
and  developed  only  during  our  middle  ages,  chiefly  after  the 
Moslem  conquest  of  Persia ;  and  is  still  held  by  the  Guebres 
and  the  Parsees  of  Bombay.  According  to  it,  one  great  Being 


190  GENTILISM. 

existed  before  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  superior  to  them,  the 
source  of  all,  called  Zarvanakarana  (time  without  limits) ; 
from  whom  had  emanated  the  two  principles,  and  into  whom 
they  are  one  day  to  be  absorbed,  together  with  all  the  beings 
who  peopled  the  world"  ("Ancient  History  of  the  East," 
Tom.  ii.).  This  is  pure  pantheism,  which  can  nowhere  be 
found  in  the  works  of  Zarathustra. 

But  is  it  true  that  real  dualism,  as  contained  in  the  passage 
quoted  above  from  Mr.  Haug,  and  interpreted  by  him,  is  surely 
to  be  accepted  as  pure,  primitive  Mazdeism  ?  This  would 
not  certainly  be  surprising,  as  nobody  concedes  infallibility  to 
Zoroaster,  who  never  pretended  to  it  himself,  always  announced 
himself  as  a  single  mortal,  and  was  never  called  a  god  or  even 
a  semi-god  by  any  of  his  followers  in  after  ages.  And  this  is 
certainly  remarkable.  A  man  of  his  moral  and  intellectual 
height,  living  in  the  remote  antiquity  all  must  now  concede  to 
him,  would  certainly,  in  any  other  nation  out  of  Judaism,  have 
been  placed  among  the  gods  ;  to  be  worshipped,  with  temples 
and  altars.  He  is  the  only  hero  of  such  high  antiquity  who 
has  not  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  godship,  which  he  would  him- 
self have  repudiated  with  horror.  And,  in  this  respect,  he  is 
on  a  par  with  the  great  men  of  the  Bible  who  honored  God, 
fransmitted  faithfully  His  worship  to  their  descendants,  fought 
for  Him  if  needed,  and  were  true  heroes  and  sages,  to  whom 
no  one  ever  thought  of  granting  divine  honors.  Are  we  obliged 
to  believe  that  he — Zoroaster — taught  real  dualism,  the  exist- 
ence of  two  distinct,  opposite  principles,  one  good,  the  other 
bad  ;  both  equal  ?  We  have  still  great  doubts  upon  this  point, 
after  having  read  what  has  been  published  lately  by  men  whom 
we  honor,  and  to  whom  religion  is  really  indebted  for  their 
discoveries. 

First,  in  the  midst  of  that  metaphysical  obscurity  which  cer- 
tainly surrounds  the  doctrine  of  Zarathustra  on  the  origin  of 
evil,  we  read  in  a  passage  of  Mr.  Spiegel,  translated  in  French, 


CENTEAL   ASIA   AND   AFRICA.  191 

the  following  phrase,  taken  from  the  thirtieth  chapter  of  the 
fourth  Gatha  :  "  Both  these  Celestial  beings,  the  Twins,  showed 
originally  in  their  own.  persons,  the  Good  and  the  Evil,  in 
thoughts,  words,  and  acts.  .  .  .  They  both  united  together  to 
create  first  life  and  transitory  things,  and  regulate  the  future 
formation  of  the  world.  ...  Of  these  two  Celestial  beings,  the 
Evil  spirit  chose  evil,  and  the  Most  Holy  who  created  the 
solid  heaven,  purity." 

This  is  not  certainly  orthodox  Christian  teaching.  We  must, 
however,  remark,  that  this  very  text  supposes  the  belief  in  real 
creation,  not  by  emanation.  And  this  was  undoubtedly  a  dogma 
of  Mazdeism ;  and  here  the  text  speaks  of  an  epoch  previous 
to  this  creation.  How  difficult  was  it  for  Zoroaster  to  interpret 
correctly  the  original  tradition  on  the  subject  ?  But  when  he 
says  that  the  "  Twins"  showed  "  originally"  the  Good  and  the 
Bad  in  their  thoughts,  etc.,  we  may  suppose  that  the  Bactrian 
Sage  made  a  slight  mistake  in  interpreting  the  time  tradition 
contained  in  his  own  mind,  and  wished  only  to  say,  that  the 
being  who  was  destined  to  be  the  Bad  Principle,  by  his  own 
choice,  "  showed  it  by  his  thoughts,  words,  and  actions."  "We 
should  have  an  orthodox  enough  description  of  Lucifer.  For 
the  angels,  for  aught  we  know,  may  have  been  created  long 
ages  before  man,  and  Lucifer  may  very  well  have  been  the  first 
created  among  the  angels,  as  he  was  the  highest.  He  must 
have 'been,  therefore,  with  God  in  heaven,  during  long  ages, 
and  united  with  Him,  perhaps,  in  the  creation  of  the  world  as 
His  minister ;  only  he  was  not  Evil  yet,  but  merely  destined 
to  be  one  day  by  his  own  choice,  as  Zoroaster  has  it.  A  very 
slight  change,  therefore,  would  make  the  text  correct  in  doctrine. 

This  would  be  plain,  perhaps,  if  so  many  books  of  the  same 
author  had  not  been  lost.  That  some  explanation  of  the  kind 
is  needed,  appears  from  the  following  :  Ahriman,  in  the  Zends, 
is  not  only  opposed  to  Ahura-Mazda,  but  likewise  to  Mithra. 
And,  as  everything  goes  by  pairs  in  Mazdeism,  he  cannot  be 

14: 


192  GENTILISM. 

called  superior  to  Mithra,  to  whom  he  is  opposed,  and  who 
drives  him  away  from  heaven,  under  the  form  of  a  serpent. 
Consequently  he  cannot  be  called  equal  to  Ahura-Mazda  or 
Onnuzd,  to  whom  Mithra  is  subordinate. 

There  is  evidently  some  confusion  in  the  text  which  cannot 
be  cleared  up  on  account  of  the  loss  of  the  greatest  part  of  Maz- 
dean  books.  J3ut  the  personage  of  Mithra,  his  fight  with,  and 
his  victory  over,  Ahriman,  prove  conclusively  to  our  own  mind 
that  there  is  no  real  dualism  between  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  in 
the  primitive  religion  of  Zarathustra.  This  question,  however, 
merits  a  somewhat  more  detailed  investigation. 

Who  is  Mithra  in  the  theology  of  Zoroaster  ? 

F.  Lenormant  and  E.  Chevallier,  both  great  orientalists,  the 
first  pre-eminently,  tell  us  (Anc.  History  of  the  East,  T.  2, 
p.  33),  that  "  Mithra  was  the  Mediator,  whose  origin  is  not 
clearly  explained  in  what  remains  of  the  Zoroastrian  books ;  but 
who  seems  to  have  sprung  from  Ormuzd,  and  to  have,  been  con- 
substantial  with  him.  Mithra  had  driven  Ahriman — who  is  rep- 
resented as  a  serpent  with  two  legs — from  heaven.  Mithra  was 
the  guardian  of  men  during  life,  and  their  judge  after  death. 
His  functions  are  especially  enlarged  on  in  the  later  books ;  but 
his  name,  his  title,  "  victorious,"  and  his  high  position  in  the 
Mazdean  faith,  unquestionably  belong  to  the  most  ancient 
phase  of  this  religion.  And  as  everything  was  arranged  in 
hostile  pairs,  Mithra  had  his  double  and  adversary  in  the*  crea- 
tion of  Ahriman  (Mithra  Daradj),  "  the  evil  Mithra,"  who 
labored  to  destroy  all  his  beneficent  work.  Is  not  this  merely 
the  fight  of  Michael  with  Lucifer  ?  Only  Michael  is  not  placed 
so  high  in  the  Old  Testament. 

Ahriman,  according  to  this,  was  the  adversary  of  Mithra,  who 
conquered  him  and  drove  him  from  heaven.  He  could  not  be, 
consequently,  equal  in  power  to  Ahura-Mazda,  from  whom 
Mithra  sprung.  Zarathustra,  whose  expressions  are  nearly 
always  exact,  certainly  much  more  so  than  the  often  vague  for- 


CEJTTKAL    ASIA   AND    AFEICA.  193 

mulas  of  the  Yedic  books,  could  not  fall  into  so  egregious  a  con- 
tradiction as  this  would  suppose.  The  real  obscurity  of  the  case 
must  come  from  the  loss  of  the  other  Mazdean  books ;  and  to 
confirm  this  opinion,  we  have  all  the  titles  given  to  the  Living 
Creator  of  the  Universe  (Ahura-Mazda),  and  noted  previously. 
Such  an  all-perfect  Being  cannot  brook  an  equal.  Hence,  in 
all  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  preserved  yet  in  Asia,  even  those 
of  the  Persian  kings  of  the  Achcemenidae  dynasty,  the  only  God 
recorded  on  the  monuments  is  Ahura-Mazda,  his  supposed  ad- 
versary never  being  mentioned. 

Another  argument,  not  without  force,  is  derived  from  the 
general  attribution  given  to  the  two  principles  in  the  text  from 
which  the  difficulty  arose.  One  is  the  cause,  the  author  of 
entity,  namely :  of  all  that  is  good ;  the  other  is  the  cause,  the 
author  of  non-entity,  namely :  of  all  that  is  evil.  God  is,  and 
can  only  be,  the  cause  of  what  is  good,  never  of  evil ;  all  Chris- 
tian theologians  and  philosophers  agree  in  this — Calvin  would 
have  been  the  only  exception,  had  he  been  a  Christian.  Zara- 
thustra,  consequently,  in  this  shows  himself  to  have  been  a 
most  profound  thinker,  if  he  did  not  derive  it  from  primitive 
tradition.  •  . 

That  the  devil  is  the  great  cause  of  evil,  and  that  evil  is  non- 
entity, is  likewise  the  doctrine  of  some  of  the  greatest  Christian 
philosophers,  among  whom  are  St.  Augustine  and  St.  Thomas. 
Zarathustra,  consequently,  is  right  again  in  this  doctrine.  The 
only  error  consists  in  making  both  "  Twins,"  which  evidently 
must  not  be  understood  literally  as  enjoying  equal  power,  since 
Ahriman  was  once  conquered  by  Mithra  inferior  to  Ormuzd. 
Every  sound  reasoning,  therefore,  goes  to  exclude  real  dualism 
from  primitive  Mazdeism. 

There  is  no  need  of  recalling  to  the  mind  of  the  reader  the 
numerous  inferior  beings  whose  existence  is  proclaimed  by  this 
religion,  either  on  the  side  of  the  good,  or  on  that  of  the  bad 
principle.  A  ncng  the  •'irst  were  included  the  Amshaspands, 


194  GENTILISM. 

the  Yzeds,  and  the  Fervers ;  among  the  second,  the  Darvands, 
the  Divas,  etc.  This  was  merely  the  doctrine  of  the  existence 
of  angels  and  demons. 

This  discussion,  therefore,  instead  of  weakening  the  impres- 
sion that  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  was  monotheistic,  has  indeed 
added  new  proofs  to  what  has  been  the  universal  belief  of  all 
learned  men  in  ancient  as  well  as  in  modern  times.  Bergier  is 
the  only  one  perhaps  who  in  his  "  Dictionnaire  Theologique," 
declares  himself  openly  an  antagonist  of  the  prevailing  opinion. 
But  all  the  ancients  were  unanimous  in  asserting  that  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Bactrian  Sage — they  thought  him  Persian — was 
opposed  to  the  multiplicity  of  gods.  In  modern  times  the 
more  fully  the  question  has  been  investigated,  the  clearer  has 
it  appeared  that  their  appreciation  of  his  doctrine  was  correct. 
Eugene  Burnouf  proclaimed  it,  it  seems,  openly ;  and  he  had  a 
right  to  speak  on  the  subject.  The  new  texts,  translated  by 
Mr.  Haug  and  Mr.  Spiegel,  appeared  at  first  to  throw  some 
doubt  upon  it,  but  Mr.  Haug  admits  unequivocally  pure 
monotheism  in  the  religious  part  of  the  Zends.  And,  if  Mr. 
Spiegel  inclines  to  the  other  side,  his  supposition  gives  rise 
to  immense  difficulties.  We  can  say,  certainly,  that  the  new 
discoveries  have  brought  to  light  the  most  unexpected  results, 
and  raised  at  once  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  far  above  all 
the  other  natural  religions  of  the  East.  It  is  now  admitted 
by  all,  except  a  few,  that  dualism  is  an  after-growth  in  the 
religious,  if  not  in  the  philosophical,  system  of  the  Zends.  Its 
restorer  speaks  constantly  of  one  God,  and  not  two.  He  in- 
veighs vehemently  against  the  multiplicity  of  gods ;  and  wishes 
his  people  to  adore  but  one.  Even  much  later,  when  Media 
and  Persia  received  his  religion  through  the  tribe  of  the  Ma- 
gians,  real  dualism,  or  the  co-existence  of  two  equal  and  supreme 
principles,  the  good  and  the  evil,  was  completely  unknown. 
All  the  cuneiform  inscriptions  found  at  Persepolis  and  else- 
where, which  commemorate  some  great  events  under  the  Per- 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFEICA.  195 

sian  kings  of  the  Achsemenidse  family  or  clan,  speak  only  of  one 
God,  Onnuzd,  sole  object  of  the  worship  of  the  nation.  It  is 
in  the  philosophical,  not  in  the  religious,  part  of  the  Zends,  that 
the  evil  principle  is  spoken,  of,  as  a  great  fact  appearing  every- 
where, and  everywhere  interfering  with  the  harmony  of  the 
divine  plan.  It  is  just  thus  that  a  Christian  speaks.  But  Zoro- 
aster, it  seems,  had  gone  farther  still  in  Christian  philosophy, 
if  we  may  employ  such  phraseology.  God,  according  to  him, 
can  be  only  the  cause  of  what  is  good.  He  cannot  be  the  cause 
of 'evil.  Consequently  true  evil,  chiefly  moral  evil,  ought  to 
be  detested  absolutely  as  coming  from  a  cause  distinct  from, 
and  consequently  opposed  to,  God.  But  how  is  the  cause  of 
evil  opposed  to  God  ?  Here,  truly,  we  admire  the  noble  dis- 
coveries made  by  modern  learned  men ;  and  we  would  wish  to 
be  able  to  ascertain  them  of  our  own  knowledge,  by  diving, 
as  they  do,  into  the  great  languages  of  primitive  man. 

They  tell  us  that  the  cause  of  what  is  good  is  entity  •  the 
cause  of  evil,  non-entity.  Thus,  at  least,  they  make  Zoroaster 
speak.  And  what  is  this  but  the  language  of  St.  Augustine 
and  St.  Thomas?  All  that  exists  in  reality  is  being;  entity 
comes  from  God.  All  moral  evil,  sin,  imperfection  even,  arises 
from  some  deficiency,  and  in  that  respect  is  a  non-entity.  God 
cannot  be  its  cause.  Zoroaster,  therefore,  only  asserts  that  God 
exists,  although  there  are  moral  evils  of  which  He  is  not  the 
cause.  In  this  he  controverts  all  future  atheists,  whose  great 
argument  is  precisely  the  reverse,  namely :  that  God  is  not, 
because  evil  is.  The  sage  friend  of  Gustasp  answers  them :  * 
evil  in  existing  beings,  as  far  as  it  is  evil,  is  non-entity.  There- 
fore God  exists  in  spite  of  it. 

We  have,  it  is  true,  placed  in  strict  order  the  thoughts  spread 
less  regularly  in  the  translation  of  the  Zend-Avesta  ;  but  from 
the  whole  context,  we  think  that  this  was  at  the  bottom  of  the 
mind  of  the  author. 


196  GENTILISM. 


III. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  such  a  pure  doctrine  should  become, 
in  course  of  time,  less  understood,  and,  indeed,  distorted  by 
commentaries.  It  is  only  what  we  should  expect  from  human 
infirmity.  That  Zoroaster,  when  speaking  of  the  "  enemy," 
the  "  adversary  "  had  in  his  mind  the  great  cause  of  all  evils, 
the  Devil  himself,  we  firmly  believe ;  and  if  so,  he  was  right. 
But  this  was  not  the  dogma  of  Ahriman  as  subsequently  de- 
veloped. In  the  original  text  of  the  Zends,  Ahriman  was  not 
"  without  the  reach  of  Ormuzd" — this  is  textually  taken  from 
the  Zend-Avesta.  Ormuzd  alone,  therefore,  was  truly  God. 
His  enemy  succumbed  to  Mithra,  inferior  to  Ormuzd,  but  his 
minister  and  he  —  Ahriman  —  was  driven  from  heaven.  In 
course  of  time,  however,  both  became  independent  of  and  hos- 
tile to  each  other,  each  ruling  over  a  realm  of  his  own.  Then 
Parsees  began,  really,  to  believe  in  two  gods — a  belief  which 
was  thus  a  corruption  of  the  ancient  doctrine.  The  exact  time 
when  this  took  place  cannot  be  ascertained.  It  was  under  the 
Persian  dynasty,  yet  not  at  its  beginning ;  at  which  time  the 
Magians  were  not  dualists.  Mauicheism  came  much  later  ;  and 
Manicheism  did  not  belong  to  Zoroaster's  doctrine  in  any  manner. 
It  was  rather  a  kind  of  gnostic  heresy,  since,  according  to  Manes, 
the  good  Principle,  Primeval  Light,  had  given  birth  to  twelve 
seons,  corresponding  to  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  and  the 
twelve  stages  of  the  world  ;  and  Darkness,  the  Bad,  or  Archon, 
had  peopled  his  kingdom  with  demons  fighting  each  other ; 
not  knowing  even  the  existence  of  Light  until,  in  their  con- 
tests, coming  to  the  outer  edge  of  their  region,  they  became 
aware  of  it,  and  made  captive  one  of  the  superior  aeons,  Christ. 
Nearly  all  we  know  of  Manicheism  is  from  St.  Augustine ; 
and  from  his  writings  no  parallelism  can  be  established  be- 
tween it  and  Zoroaster's  system.  The  most  corrupt  Ahrimanic 


CENTRAL   ASIA   AND   AFEICA.  197 

doctrine  of  the  modern  Parsees  or  Guebres  is  far  superior  to 
what  Manes  ever  taught.  Modern  critics,  therefore,  have  re- 
moved by  their  philological  discoveries,  all  the  doubts  and  un- 
certainties which  formerly  obscured  the  real  belief  of  the  primi- 
tive Magians.  The  doctrine  was  pure  at  first.  In  course  of 
time  it  was  altered,  and  dualism  replaced  monotheism.  Thus 
several  texts  of  Plutarch  (De  Iside  et  Osiride)  are  reconciled  ; 
and  the  conclusions  drawn  by  Thomas  Hyde,  Peter  Bayle,  and 
other  critics  of  the  seventeenth  century,  are  proved  to  have 
been  mistakes ;  whilst  the  truths  elicited  by  Cudworth,  and 
Mosheim,  his  annotator,  are  confirmed;  this  time,  however, 
supported  by  irrefragable  documents,  which  render  the  conclu- 
sion final.  -Mithra,  likewise,  comes  thus  into  the  system. 

We  need  not  enter  into  other  peculiarities  of  Zoroastrianism. 
Our  whole  object  has  been  to  ascertain  if  monotheism  was  con- 
tained in  it,  and  we  think  we  have  placed  that  beyond  dispute. 
A  word  or  two,  however,  may  be  said  on  some  other  dogmas 
of  that  primitive  faith.  That  the  certainty  of  a  judgment 
after  life,  of  places  of  reward  or  punishment — Heaven  and 
Hell — formed  a  portion  of  its  creed,  cannot  be  a  matter  of 
doubt.  But  even  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  body 
is  clearly  contained  in  the  most  authentic  part  of  tl\e  Zend- 
Avesta  ;  and  the  solid  argument  used  by  Christians  to  prove  its 
possibility — the  almightiness  of  the  Creator — is  likewise  referred 
to  in  the  work  of  Zoroaster.  Finally,  there  is  that  august  per- 
sonage, apart  from  all  superior  beings  under  God,  "  who  stands 
between  God  and  man ;  shows  the  way  to  heaven,  and  pro- 
nounces judgment  upon  human  actions  after  death ;  guards 
with  his  drawn  sword  the  whole  world  against  the  demons ; 
has  his  own  light  from  inside,  and  from  outside  is  decorated 
with  stars,"  who  is,  apparently,  more  powerful  than  the  great 
archangel  Michael  in  Scripture,  and  inferior  only  to  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ.  Nothing  certainly  more  holy  and  more  pure  has 
ever  issued  from  an  uninspired  pen,  nor  been  bequeathed  to 


198  GENTILISM. 

the  teachings  of  reason  and  the  transmission  of  tradition.  We 
allude  to  the  great  personality  of  Mithra,  as  he  is  described  in 
the  Zends,  not  in  his  infamous  travesty,  in  later  tunes,  in  heathen 
Rome. 

It  was  against  the  believers  in  such  exalted  doctrines  that 
the  brutal  sword  of  Omar  was  drawn  from  the  scabbard,  never 
to  return  to  it  until  they  were  well-nigh  extirpated.  A  few 
thousand  Guebres  still  surviving  in  Persia,  and  a  few  more 
thousand  Parsees  settled  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bombay  in 
India,  are  all  that  remain  of  the  followers  of  Zoroaster.  The 
Moslems,  with  their  boasted  mission  of  destroying  idolatry, 
waged  a  more  implacable  warfare  against  the  purest  nionothe- 
ists  of  the  East,  as  well  as  against  the  Christians  of  the  West, 
than  ever  they  did  against  the  fetichists  of  Africa,  or  the  wor- 
shippers of  Siva  in  Hindostan. 

The  fact  is,  the  great  danger  in  our  days,  in  speaking  of  the 
religious  system  of  the  Zends,  is  to  appear  to  favor  the  opinion 
of  those  modern  writers  who  pretend  that  Judaism,  or  even 
Christianity,  found  there  the  substance  of  the  belief  elaborated 
in  the  Old  and  New  Testaments.  But  Origen  had  already,  six- 
teen hundred  years  ago,  guarded  us  against  this  error  by  assert- 
ing (Contra  Celsum,  vi.)  "  that  Christianity  has  received  noth- 
ing from  them  ;"  and  it  is  a  fact  easily  ascertained  by  history. 

In  speaking  of  the  doctrinal  corruptions  which  time  and  the 
weakness  of  the  human  mind  introduced  into  Mazdeism,  we  do 
not  find  the  gradual  and  well  -  ascertained  decline  which  we 
described  in  Hindooism.  Zarathustra  had  spoken  so  openly 
against  the  multiplicity  of  gods,  and  his  ritual  was  so  clear  and 
precise  in  the  same  direction,  that  his  followers  could  not  go 
totally  astray  as  long  as  they  read  and  revered  his  books. 
Yet,  we  have  just  seen  how  real  dualism  was  introduced. 
And  something  has  been  said  of  the  form  it  took  when  the 
fatal  error  of  Zarvanakanara  crept  in.  We  refer  to  a  para- 
graph a  few  pages  back.  "  This  monstrous  conception "  — • 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AKD    AFRICA.  199 

remark  with  justice  F.  Lenormant  and  E.  Chevallier  in  their 
History  of  the  East — "  which  converted  Mazdeism  into  abso- 
lute pantheism,  substituted  emanation  for  creation,  and  reduced 
Ormuzd  from  the  position  assigned  him  by  Zoroaster,  as  the 
Great  Creator  of  all,  to  that  of  a  mere  demiurgos — the  organ- 
izer of  a  pre-existent  universe  ;  which  assimilates  the  self-exist- 
ing Being,  the  Deity,  with  uncreated  matter,  with  a  chaos  sup- 
posed to  be  eternal ;  which  destroys  all  distinction  in  the  moral 
government  of  the  world  between  good  and  evil,  making  them 
both  to  have  emanated  from,  and  to  be  destined  to  be  again 
absorbed  into,  the  same  divine  being  ....  this  monstrous  con- 
ception is  absolutely  Contrary  to  the  very  spirit  of  the  reform 
of  Zoroaster." 

Yet  it  seems  that  it  is,  and  has  been,  the  belief  of  the  Parsees 
for  many  ages.  Mr.  Spiegel,  Mr.  Oppert,  and  the  Baron  d'Eck- 
stein  have  shown  that  this  "  Zarvanian  doctrine  "  resulted  from 
the  infiltration  of  the  gross  and  materialistic  pantheism  of  Chal- 
dsea  into  Mazdeism.  This  religion,  therefore,  in  course  of  time, 
took  the  first  downward  step  in  error — Pantheism — as  described 
in  the  Book  of  Wisdom  ;  but  never  reached  the  second,  pure 
idolatry.  Even  during  the  dynasty  of  the  Aehcemenidce,  when 
bloody,  nay,  human  sacrifices — a  thing  so  abhorrent  to  primi- 
tive Mazdeism — made  a  part  of  the  Persian  religion,  not  only 
did  not  the  worship  of  idols  prevail,  as  in  other  countries 
at  the  time,  as  in  Hindostan  certainly ;  not  only  no  great  works 
of  art  were  ever  raised  to  polytheism  as  in  Hindostan,  Egypt, 
and  Greece ;  not  only  poetry  did  not  rival  art  for  its  illustra- 
tion, as  in  all  those  regions ;  but  invariably  in  their  warlike 
expeditions  the  Persians  showed  their  hatred  of  idolatry  by 
destroying  its  emblems  and  its  temples  in  Asia  Minor,  Egypt, 
and  Greece. 

"  Fire  worship "  was  another  deterioration  of  the  primitive 
doctrine,  of  which  a  word  must  be  said.  It  became  a  real 
"  worship  of  fire "  as  an  element.  Nor  is  there  in  that  any- 


200  GENTILISM. 

thing  to  surprise  us,  inasmuch,  as  fire  must  always  be  an  im- 
portant object  in  any  pantheistic  creed.  But  was  it  so  in 
Mazdeism  at  first  \  Some  modern  philologists  think  so,  and 
accuse-  Zoroaster  of  not  having  had  the  courage  to  destroy  this 
superstition  which  he  found  in  the  country  of  G-ustasp.  This 
pusillanimity  is  scarcely  intelligible  in  the  Bactrian  Sage, 
whom  we  heard,  at  the  very  'commencement  of  his  reform, 
declaring  openly  against  the  "fire  worship"  of  the  "ahura" 
priesthood  of  his  own  country,  as  well  as  against  the  "  devas  " 
of  the  "  enemy."  If  he  kept  the  symbol  in  his  ritual,  it  must 
have  been  only  as  an  emblem.  Hence  F.  Lenormant  and  E. 
Chevallier  state  openly :  "  The  only  representation  of  Ormuzd 
admitted  within  the  sanctuaries  by  the  Zend-Avesta,  arid  per- 
mitted in  worship,  was  fire,  because  this  was  considered  as  per- 
fectly pure  and  almost  immaterial.  From  this  arose  the  adora- 
tion of  the  sacred  fire,  though  the  Mazdeans  did  not  adore  the 
fire  itself,  but  considered  it  merely  a  representative  of  Or- 
muzd." 

In  conclusion,  it  is  almost  needless  to  add  that  the  morality 
of  the  Zends  is  irreproachable.  Its  ethical  code  is  the  only 
ancient  one — the  Jewish  Decalogue  being  always  withdrawn 
from  comparison,  which  taught  openly  that  purity  of  morals 
ought  not  to  reach  only  human  actions,  but  to  embrace  likewise 
words  and  thoughts.  The  phrase  is  repeated  to  satiety  in  the 
Zends,  so  as  to  become  a  general  formula,  which  necessarily 
recalls  to  a  Christian  the  order  he  has  to  follow  in  the  examen 
of  his  own  conscience. 

With  pure  morality,  a  great  simplicity  of  life  is  everywhere 
recommended  in  Mazdeism,  as  it  was  in  primitive  Hindooism. 
Three  orders  of  men  in  society  are  mentioned — the  priest,  the 
warrior,  and  the  agriculturist — never,  however,  degenerating 
into  castes.  To  encourage  agriculture  ought  to  be  the  chief 
object  of  a  good  king ;  and  Vistagpa,  Gustasp,  is  represented 
as  a  pattern  in  that  regard.  Under  his  sway,  each  Mazdean 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFEICA.  201 

"built  to  himself  an  habitation  on  the  earth,  in  which  he 
maintained  fire,  cattle,  his  wife,  his  children,  and  flocks  and 
herds."  This  is  again  the  picture  of  patriarchal  life  we  have 
already  admired  in  Hindostan.  In  Bactria,  besides,  the  Maz- 
dean  had  to  protect  himself  against  the  nomads  of  the  north  ; 
and  he  could  not  do  it  better  than  by  adopting  a  sedentary 
life,  and  devoting  himself  to  agricultural  pursuits.  Another 
convincing  example  is  thus  f  umished  of  primeval  "  civil- 
ization," so  different  from  ours,  yet  so  superior  to  it,  if  we 
take  an  account  of  the  spiritual  and  moral  aspect  of  our 
humanity. 

The  greatest  enemies  the  Mazdeans  had  ever  to  fear,  accord- 
ing to  the  Zends,  were  the  nomads  in  the  north,  and  the  wor- 
shippers of  the  "  devas "  in  the  south.  2?o  mention  is  ever 
made  of  savages  and  barbarians ;  so  that  the  common  theory 
of  our  days  does  not  seem  to  hold  good  for  Central  Asia  in  the 
oldest  times.  There  were,  certainly,  Turanian  races  all  around 
the  faithful  subjects  of  King  Yistacpa ;  but  they  were  not 
materially  different  from  the  Tartar  nomads  of  our  day.  Of 
the  "  primitive  man,"  as  described  by  Sir  John  Lubbock,  E.  B. 
Tylor,  etc.,  not  a  single  representative  appears  to  be  present. 
Had  they  all  been  already  buried,  and  were  their  remains  to 
be  found  only  in  the  tertiary  strata  of  the  epoch  \  A  geologist 
alone  could  answer.  But  we  must  ask  permission  to  believe 
that  "  savagery "  had  not  yet  begun  for  Central  Asia.  The 
Russians  even  scarcely  found  it  in  their  expedition  of  last  year 
against  Khiva,  the  very  centre  of  the  kingdom  of  ancient 
Gustasp  ;  although,  undoubtedly,  the  people  they  met  with  and 
described  have  prodigiously  degenerated  from  the  contempo- 
raries of  Vistagpa  and  Zarathustra.  Shall  we  ever  find  the 
theory  of  progress  proved  in  history,  except  as  a  consequence 
of  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  2 


202  GENTILISM. 

SECTION   II. AFRICA. 

In  the  preceding  pages,  we  hope  that  we  have  established 
tolerably  conclusively  the  fact,  that  monotheism  was  the  primitive 
religion  of  the  whole  of  Asia ;  or,  at  least,  spread  itself  over  its 
whole  surface  from  the  central  part  of  the  continent,  where  it 
surely  existed  before  any  other  known  religion.  The  only  parts  of 
it  which  have  not  come  directly  under  consideration,  are  at  the 
west,  Arabia,  Syria,  and  Scythia ;  but  as  Hamitism,  or  the  Allo- 
phylian  races,  invaded  all  those  countries,  little  can  be  said 
of  them.  We  will  waive  all  mention  of  them  at  present.  As 
to  the  Far-East :  China,  Thibet,  Farther-India,  Japan,  and  other 
large  islands,  Buddhism  overran  them  with  error,  by  a  process 
we  have  already  described,  and  into  which  Hindooism  entered 
largely.  Of  the  religion  of  those  countries  previously  to  Buddh- 
ism, nothing  is  known,  except  a  very  slight  account  with  respect 
to  China,  which  we  may  in  due  time  adduce  as  not  unfavorable 
to  our  views.  In  a  future  chapter  more  shall  be  said  on  these 
various  points. 

The  field,  therefore,  which  now  offers  itself  to  our  investiga- 
tion is  the  large  continent  of  Africa ;  and  as  the  direction  of 
immigration  taken  by  its  primitive  population  was  from  the 
basin  of  the  Red  Sea,  and  through  the  far-reaching  channel  of 
the  Nile  toward  the  interior  of  the  country,  Egypt  must  be 
the  first  and  chief  object  of  our  attention.  The  negroes  of  the 
centre,  the  Kafirs  of  the  south,  the  barbarian  tribes  of  Guinea, 
will  reveal  to  us  their  real  ancestors  in  Egypt  and  Ethiopia ; 
and  we  shall  be  able  to  decide  whether  or  not  they  ought  to 
be  placed  in  juxtaposition  with  the  gorillas  and  the  apes  of 
the  same  country. 

EGYPT   AND   ETHIOPIA. 
I. 

All  ethnographers  now  admit  that  Egypt  received  its  first 
inhabitants  from  Asia,  the  cradle  of  mankind.  But  the  ques- 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFRICA.  203 

tion  is,  To  what  race  did  they  belong  ?  Sir  George  Rawlinson, 
in  his  "Herodotus"  (Tom.  2d,  Appen.  to  Book  2d,  Chap.  1), 
says  bluntly:  "The  inhabitants  of  the  valley  of  the  Nile 
derived  their  origin  from  Asia.  .  .  .  Their  skull  shows  them  to 
have  been  of  the  Caucasian  stock,  and  distinct  from  the 
African  tribes  westward  of  the  Nile ;  and  they  are  evidently 
related  to  the  oldest  races  of  Central  Asia." 

Yet,  everywhere,  the  same  author,  to  his  great  credit,  bends 
to  the  authority  of  the  Bible,  and  rejects  aify  system  which 
openly  contradicts  it.  The  book  of  Genesis  is  plain  in  its 
language :  Egypt  was  the  land  of  Mesraim,  and  Mesraim  was 
the  son  of  Ham.  Can  the  posterity  of  Ham  be  said  to  belong 
to  the  Caucasian  stock  ?  Indeed,  universal  opinion  ascribes 
the  old  Egyptians  to  the  Hamite  races ;  and  their  language 
was  certainly  Turanian  in  its  general  character.  There  are, 
however,  difficulties  on  the  subject  which  it  does  not  come 
within  our  plan  to  smooth  over.  It  is  believed  by  many 
that  they  were  "  an  offset  from  the  early  undivided  Asiatic 
stock,"  and  that  their  language  was  not  altogether  "  Turanian," 
but  "  partook  also  of  the  peculiarities  of  the  Semitic  and  San- 
scritic."  Dr.  Prichard,  in  his  "Natural  History  of  Man," 
thinks  they  were  of  a  mixed  origin. 

This  indistinctness  both  in  their  ethnic  and  grammatical 
characteristics,  is  only  what  we  should  have  expected  from  the 
circumstance  of  their  being  the  most  ancient  civilized  people 
on  earth.  They  must,  like  the  Celts,  have  left  Central  Asia 
before  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  character  was  fully  formed ;  and 
on  this  account  there  was  in  them  something  of  the  primitive 
unity.  The  reflections  of  Sir  George  Rawlinson,  and  of 
several  other  modern  Egyptologists,  lead  to  this  strange  con- 
clusion, which  certainly  lends  an  additional  interest  to  the 
study  of  this  ancient  people. 

There  is  another  curious  and  suggestive  peculiarity  of  the 
Egyptians,  namely,  their  civilization  from  the  very  first.  The 


204  GESTTILISM. 

Hindoos,  certainly,  and  the  Bactrians,  enjoyed  from  the  earliest 
times  a  civilization  of  their  own.  Yet  it  was  a  very  different  one, 
as  we  saw,  from  that  which  is  understood  by  the  word  in  our 
modern  ages.  But "  it  is  a  phenomenon  worthy  of  the  most 
serious  attention,"  says  Champollion-Figeac,  (Egypte  ancienne, 
Paris,  1839),  "  to  see  Egypt  already,  at  such  remote  period,  in 
possession  of  all  civil,  religious,  and  military  institutions  indis- 
pensable to  the  prosperity  of  a  great  people,  and  of  all  the 
gratifications  that  science  and  arts  can  add  to  the  advantages  of 
civil  and  religious  laws."  And  more  emphatically  still, 
Mariette  Bey  says  in  his  "ApperQu  de  1'histoire  d'Egypte,"  that 
"  at  the  very  origin  of  time  we  see  Egyptian  civilization 
already  complete,  and  future  ages,  however,  numerous  and 
long,  can  scarcely  teach  it  anything  more." 

The  authors  who  hold  such  a  language  do  not  pretend, 
certainly,  that  something  of  the  apparent  progress  we  have 
already  pointed  out  in  Hindostan,  and  which  took  place  even 
more  obviously  in  Greece,  did  not  take  place  in  Egypt ;  since 
all  are  agreed  that  the  eighteenth  dynasty,  and  the  reign  of 
Harnesses  II.  was  the  apogee  of  Egyptian  art  and  refinement. 
But  they  mean  there  was  no  visible  childhood  for  this  nation  ; 
which  emerges  in  history  with  all  the  appliances  of  arts ;  so 
that  E.  Kenan  himself  is  obliged  to  admit  (Antiquites  et  fouilles 
d'Egypte,  Revue  des  deux  JVIondes,  1865),  that  "  this  country 
cannot  be  said  to  start  from  a  mythic,  heroic,  and  barbarous 
beginning." 

It  is,  therefore,  for  us  an  especially  important  subject  for 
investigation,  on  account  of  the  flat  contradiction  it  gives  to 
the  theory  which  supposes  man  to  have  been  at  first  a  barba- 
rian. Whilst,  at  the  same  time,  it  establishes  conclusively  that 
man  is  not  so  ancient  as  modern  theories  pretend  ;  for  Bunsen 
himself  assigns  to  the  origin  of  the  monarchy  of  the  Pharaohs 
—in  Egyptian,  Pir  aa — the  date  of  4245  before  Christ.  And 
although,  generally,  the  first  Manetho  dynasty  is  believed  to  have 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  205 

begun  eight  hundred  years  earlier — toward  5004 — Mr.  Mariette 
says,  with  a  pleasing  diffidence  in  his  "  Notice  des  Monuments, 
etc.,  Alexandrie,  1864  :"  "  The  Egyptian  chronology  offers 
difficulties  which  have  not  yet  been  conquered  ....  For  all 
dates  anterior  to  Psamineticus  First  (665  before  Christ),  it  is 
impossible  to  assign  more  than  approximations,  which  becom2 
uncertain  the  more  we  go  up  the  stream  of  ages  ....  Doubt 
increases  as  we  recede  back  from  the  time  of  our  era,  so  that 
according  to  the  various  attempted  systems,  there  may  be  a  dif- 
ference of  two  thousand  years  in  the  way  of  establishing  the 
foundation  of  the  Egyptian  monarchy." 

Modern  opposers  of  Christianity,  therefore,  have  ceased  to 
object  the  millions  of  years,  and  the  interminable  dynasties  of 
the  gods  contained  in  the  Egyptian  mythology.  They  have 
•changed  altogether  their  tactics ;  and,  setting  aside  the  teach- 
ings of  history  as  lately  developed,  they  fall  back  on  the  long- 
forgotten  cosmogonies  of  the  Greeks.  And,  in  order  to  explain 
the  creation  of  the  world  without  the  intervention  of  God,  they 
present  to  our  astonished  gaze  the  infinite  duration  of  a  process 
which  must  begin  by  nothing  (their  celebrated  protoplasm),  to 
end  with  all  the  wonders  we  now  admire. 

Egypt,  therefore,  was  one  of  the  first  countries  settled  by 
man ;  and  if  we  can  know  what  divinity  Egypt  first  worship- 
ped, a  great  step  will  have  been  made  in  our  progress  toward 
the  truth  we  are  investigating.  But  an  immense  difficult/ 
meets  us  at  the  very  outset.  We  are  surrounded  with  myste- 
ries, and  we  have  no  certain  records  to  solve  them.  For  Egypt 
is,  in  truth,  the  land  of  mystery.  Sphinxes  of  hard  granite, 
sculptured  and  polished  with  a  wondrous  art,  arrayed  in  long 
lines  before  the  porticoes  of  the  temples,  seem  yet  in  our  days 
to  mock  the  traveller,  and  dare  him  to  raise  the  veil  of  Ibis. 
The  country  as  it  was  formerly  is  really  a  puzzle :  so  grand 
in  her  monuments,  and  so  vulgar  in  her  manners ;  so  civilized 
and  so  wretched ;  full  of  noble  temples  and  of  dark  sepulchres ; 


206  GENTILISM. 

with  palaces  for  the  great  and  wretched  huts  for  the  masses  of 
the  people ;  a  paradise  four  months  of  the  year,  a  desert  of 
mud  or  of  dust  for  the  remainder.  Celsus  could  with  justice 
say  to  the  Egyptian  Origen,  who,  for  once,  did  not  contradict 
him :  "  In  the  places  of  worship  of  the  Egyptians,  as  you  ap- 
proach them,  are  to  be  seen  splendid  enclosures,  and  groves, 
and  large  and  beautiful  gateways,  and  wonderful  temples,  and 
magnificent  tents  around  them,  and  ceremonies  of  worship, 
full  of  superstition  and  mystery ;  but  when  you  have  entered 
and  passed  within,  the  object  of  adoration  is  seen  to  be  a  cat, 
or  an  ape,  or  a  crocodile,  or  a  goat,  or  a  dog !" 


II. 


It  is  chiefly  religion  that  is  in  Egypt  hard  to  understand. 
After  all  the  researches  of  previous  centuries,  and  of  our  own 
age,  whose  discoveries  surpass  those  of  all  the  others  put  to- 
gether, there  are  still  nearly  as  many  opinions  on  the  subject  as 
there  are  investigators.  Can  we  pretend  to  solve  the  problem  ? 
If  the  mystery  had  not  been  already  cleared  up  as  far  as  re- 
gards Hindostan,  we  might  well  despair.  However,  orientalists 
and  learned  travellers  have  of  late  years  brought  to  light  a 
certain  amount  of  information  as  to  the  dark  past  of  Egypt. 
And  this,  taken  in  connection  with  the  full  and  instructive  In- 
dian discoveries,  may  yet  help  us  to  do  something  towards 
solving  a  problem  which,  at  the  first  blush,  seemed  to  be 
closed  against  us.  And  this  the  more,  as,  of  late,  inscriptions 
have  been  deciphered  which  will  materially  contribute  towards 
such  a  result.  The  books  which,  no  doubt,  previously  existed 
have  been  lost,  probably  for  ever.  "We  have  not  the  Yedas 
and  the  Zends  of  Egypt ;  and  thus  we  appear  to  grope  in  the 
dark.  For  the  full  knowledge  of  the  hieroglyphs,  if  they 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFRICA.  207 

could  all  be  read  even,  would  not,  probably,  be  sufficient  to 
offer  a  complete  solution  of  our  difficulty. 

That  tliere  were  books  written  in  Egypt  in  the  most  primitive 
times,  cannot  be  denied.  The  proof  of  it  exists  in  too  many 
passages  of  ancient  authors.  There  were  even,  in  that  strange 
country,  simultaneously,  several  different  alphabets  and  distinct 
kinds  of  writing.  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  who  is  an  au- 
thority, since  they  existed  yet  in  his  time,  tells  us,  that  "  those 
instructed  among  the  Egyptians  learned  first  of  all  that  style  of 
the  Egyptian  letters  which  is  called  epistolographic  (we  call 
it  now  demotic)  ;  and,  secondly,  the  hieratic,  which  the  sacred 
scribes  practise  ;  and  finally  and  last  of  all,  the  hieroglyphic,  of 
which  one  kind  is  by  the  first  elements  literal  (kyriologic),  and 
the  other  symbolic.  Of  the  symbolic,  one  kind  speaks  literally 
by  imitation,  and  another  writes  as  it  were  figuratively ;  and  an- 
other is  quite  allegorical,  using  certain  enigmas."  (Stromata, 
Lib.  v.,  Cap.  4).  It  appears  from  this  passage,  that  the  Egyp- 
tian language  had  forms  enough  to  satisfy  all  tastes;  and 
we  do  not  think  that  any  other  country,  even  India,  enjoyed 
such  a  superabundance  of  literary  elements.  Modern  Egyptol- 
ogists are  familiar  with  ancient  documents  written  in  demotic 
letters  and  style  ;  and  owing  to  the  recent  discoveries  of 
Young,  Champollion,  Koselliiii,  and  others,  the  hieroglyphs, 
either  literal  (kyriologic) — we  call  them  phonetic — or  symbolic, 
of  the  two  kinds  mentioned  by  St.  Clement,  begin  to  be  known 
to  us,  and  to  unveil  many  events  of  the  past  hitherto  concealed 
or  in  doubt.  But,  unfortunately,  the  books  written  in  the  hie- 
ratic style,  which  were  chiefly  those  answering  to  the  Vedas  of 
Hindostan,  are  now  lost,  or  if  a  few  pages  of  them  .are  now 
occasionally  found,  as  some  pretend,  these  are  but  insignificant 
fragments. 

A  word  on  each  of  those  subjects  will  render  the  matter 
clear.  Nothing  was  written  in  Egypt  in  the  epistolographic, 

or  as  we  say,  demotic  style,  but  civil  and  domestic  documents, 
15 


208  GE1STTILISM. 

of  which  a  great  number  now  exist  and  can  be  deciphered. 
Hence,  we  know  how  the  Egyptians  kept  their  accounts, 
wrote  to  their  friends,  corresponded  for  the  sake  of  trade, 
barter,  information,  sold  or  bought  their  houses  and  fields,  etc., 
etc.  But  in  vain  should  we  look  in  those  documents  for  any- 
thing concerning  their  religion,  unless  in  a  fragmentary  shape, 
and  by  mere  allusions,  which  give  us  the  religious  thoughts  of 
the  people  by  implication.  According  to  Sir  George  Rawlin- 
son  (Herodotus,  Tom.  ii.,  Appendix  to  Book  ii.,  Chap.  5) :  "  The 
demotic  character  replaced  the  hieratic,"  which  consequently 
fell  into  disuse.  He  asserts,  likewise,  that  "  it  was  used  in  his- 
torical papyri,"  arid  consequently  did  not  serve  only  for  domes- 
tic purposes.  It  seems  that  many  important  discoveries  have 
been  made  lately  in  this  kind  of  writing.  Yet  it  is  not  known 
when  the  demotic  came  into  use,  although  "  it  was  as  early  as 
the  reign  of  Psammeticus  II.,  of  the  twenty-sixth  dynasty." 
But  this  is  not  an  early  epoch  for  us,  and  cannot  give  us  the 
primitive  Egyptian  religion. 

People,  in  general,  know  well  how,  a  few  years  ago,  the  key 
of  the  hieroglyphs  was  at  last  found ;  and  this  discovery  pro- 
duced the  greatest  sensation  throughout  the  learned  world.  It 
was  thought  that,  at  last,  we  should  know  the  religion  of  the 
Egyptians.  For  was  it  not  on  the  public  monuments,  on  the 
obelisks,  and  colossal  statues  of  the  gods,  that  the  sphinx 
spoke  ?  It  turned  out,  however,  that  all  those  mysterious  char- 
acters composed  merely  inscriptions  in  the  "lapidary  style," 
as  a  Roman  would  say,  stating  that  such  a  monument,  obelisk, 
statue,  had  been  raised  by  such  a  king,  who  was  of  course  de- 
voted to  the  worship  of  Amun,  Osiris,  Ra,  Phtah,  etc.,  etc. 
It  was  a  complete  disappointment.  Yet  people  might  have 
expected  it,  had  they  reflected  on  passages  in  well-knowa 
authors,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  hieroglyphs  were  per- 
fectly understood,  and  could  be  read  easily  long  ago.  For  the 
Ptolemies  and  the  Caesars  had  erected  monuments,  with  the  same 


*  CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  209 

kind  of  inscriptions,  all  over  Egypt.  Such  stale  affairs  could 
not,  consequently,  make  us  acquainted  with  the  primitive  wor- 
ship, and  the  mysterious  knowledge  of  this  strange  people.* 

How  could  any  serious  and  deep  information  be  satisfactorily 
conveyed  by  writings  in  which  it  seems  there  cannot  be  gram- 
mar nor  orthography ;  since,  on  the  same  monuments,  some  of 
the  characters  are  truly  phonetic,  others  are  strictly  and  liter- 
ally figurative,  and  others  finally  enigmatical  and  allegori- 
cal ?  And  that  has  actually  been  found  out  by  Champollion 
and  others,  which  was  stated  by  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in 
the  passage  quoted  above,  more  than  fifteen  hundred  years  ago. 

The  phonetic  or  kyriologic  signs,  as  St.  Clement  says,  in  a 
subsequent  part  of  the  passage  referred  to,  are  invariably 
composed  of  the  first  letters  of  well-known  words.  Thus,  to 
speak  in  our  modern  language,  an  I  might  be  represented  by  a 
lion,  a  lyre,  a  log,  a  locust,  or  by  whatever  you  please,  begin- 
ning by  the  same  first  letter.  The  literally  figurative  signs,  or 
imitative,  as  St.  Clement  calls  them,  were  plain  and  strict  figures 
representing  any  object  whatsoever ;  thus  the  sun  could  be  rep- 
resented by  a  circle,  its  exterior  figure  ;  and  the  moon  could  be 
denoted  by  a  crescent,  its  supposed  image,  etc.  But  worst  of 
all,  the  enigmatical  and  allegorical  signs  might  be  anything 
which  in  the  fancy  of  an  Egyptian  artist  could  be  called  an 
enigma  or  an  allegory  of  the  object  intended  to  be  represented. 

*  The  men  of  the  times  anterior  to  our  own,  well  acquainted  with  class- 
ical authors,  had  likewise  the  translation  of  two  long  inscriptions,  taken 
from  well-known  obelisks,  which  might  have  taught  them  not  to  expect 
too  much  from  those  sources  of  information.  There  was  first  the  one 
mentioned  by  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  in  his  Book  xvii.,  4,  translated  into 
Greek  by  Hermapion,  from  the  obelisk  of  Heliopolis.  placed  by  Caesar 
Augustus  in  the  Circus  Maximus,  which  runs  thus :  "  Thus  says  Helios 
to  King  Ramesses  :  I  have  given  to  thee,  with  joy,  to  rule  over  the  world ; 
whom  Helios  loves,  and  Apollo  the  powerful ;  .  .  .  .  the  son  of  the  gods, 
the  ruler  of  the  world  ....  King  Ramesses,  to  whom  all  the  earth  is 
subject,  by  valor  and  boldness  .... 

"  Apollo  the  powerful,  the  true  lord  of  the  diadein  ;  Ramesses,  of  whom 


210  GENTILISM. 

And  all  those  various  signs  of  thought  were  indiscriminately 
used  in  the  hieroglyphic  inscriptions. 

Tliis-brief  description  contains  the  substance  of  the  chief  dis- 
coveries explained  in  the  ponderous  volumes  of  modern  Egyp- 
tologists until  the  death  of  Champollion.  The  hieroglyphs 
were  merely  objects  of  art  to  adorn  the  monuments  of  the 
nation  ;  and  the  ideas  they  conveyed  were  known  by  the 
beholders  almost  conventionally.  The  learned  men  among 
them  tacitly  agreed  that  such  an  idea  would  be  represented 
by  such  a  sign,  and  that  is  nearly  ah1.  It  is  evident  that  the 
knowledge  of  the  primitive  religion  of  Egypt  cannot  be  de- 
duced from  such  public  documents.  It  ought,  moreover,  to  be 
remarked,  that  the  invention  of  hieroglyphs  was  probably  later 
than  the  introduction  of  idolatry,  as  we  shall  have  occasion  to 
show ;  and,  thus,  these  inscriptions  could  only  refer  to  the  idola- 
trous religion  of  the  people,  not  to  their  primitive  worship, 
whatever  that  might  have  been. 

Lately,  it  is  true,  a  more  exact  study  seems  to  have  brought 
the  system  of  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  to  something  of  the  nature 
of  a  rude  alphabet ;  by  finding  out  what  are  thought  to  be  deter- 
minative letters  of  a  phonetic  kind,  either  preceding  or  some- 
times following  the  symbolic  or  enigmatical  hieroglyph,  impart- 
ing to  forty-two  characters — they  say  this  is  the  last  and  most  im- 
proved style — all  the  required  meanings  by  the  help  of  those 
determinatives,  which  might  be  thus  called  affixes  or  suffixes; 

Egypt  boasts;  who  has  glorified  the  city  of  Helios;  who  rules  over  the 
earth  ;  who  honors  the  gods  dwelling  in  the  city  of  Helios  ;  whom  Helios 
loves." 

Four  more  paragraphs  follow  of  the  same  kind. 

The  second  example  is  found  in  tlie  second  book  of  the  Annals  of  Taci- 
tus, who,  speaking  of  the  expedition  of  Germanicus  to  Egypt,  says : 

"  He  visited  the  mighty  antiquities  of  Thebes,  where  upon  huge  obe- 
lisks yet  remained  Egyptian  characters,  describing  its  former  opulence. 
One  of  the  senior  priests  was  ordered  to  interpret  them :  He  said  they 
related,  '  that  Thebes  once  contained  seven  hundred  thousand  fighting 
men  ;  that  with  this  army  King  Harnesses  had  conquered  Lybia,  Ethiopia, 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  211 

And  it  is  said,  that  documents  of  this  nature,  chiefly  on  papy- 
rus— for  occasionally  hieroglyphs  are  found  on  papyrus — contain 
not  only  inscriptions,  but  ideas  of  any  kind,  even  ritual  prayers 
and  hymns.  But  this  seems  to  us  very  conjectural ;  principally, 
for  the  reason  that  this  kind  of  informal  alphabet  is  said  to 
have  been  constantly  improving  from  the  4th  dynasty  to  the 
26th ;  and  thus  could  never  have  had  a  permanent  character ;  so 
that  nothing  certain  and  positive  can  be  gathered  from  it.  We 
should,  indeed,  wonder  that  the  old  Egyptians,  so  traditional,  so 
conservative,  so  much  attached  to  their  customs,  should  have 
been  constantly  revolutionizing  their  alphabet,  and  never  satis- 
fied with  the  wisdom  of  their  ancestors  in  so  important  a 
branch  of  their  science  and  art.  Moreover,  the  theory  we  are  dis- 
cussing would  suppose  that  the  Egyptian  dynasties  have  been 
well  ascertained  ;  whereas,  it  is  known  that  the  best  Egyptolo- 
gists differ  on  that  essential  point,  and  there  is  very  little  pros- 
pect of  their  ever  agreeing  on  the  subject. 

This  discussion,  however,  is  not  essential  for  the  object  we 
have  in  view.  For  it  is  evident  that,  however  improved  and 
grammatical  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphs  may  finally  be  found  to 
have  been,  they  could,  at  best,  be  of  very  little  help  for  the 
question  under  consideration.  Can  we  find  in  them  the  true 
primitive  system  of  the  Egyptian  worship  ?  Undoubtedly  not. 

The  books  which  might,  indeed,  have  helped  us  to  solve  the 
problem,  were  certainly  those  written  in  the  hieratic  style,  as 

the  Medes  and  Persians,  the  Bactrians  and  Scythians,  and  to  his  empire 
had  added  the  territories  of  the  Syrians,  Armenians,  and  their  neighbors, 
the  Cappadocians  ....  Here,  al-o,  was  read  the  assessment  of  tribute  laid 
on  several  nations  ;  what  weight  of  silver  and  gold  ;  what  number  of  horses 
and  arms  ....  were  by  each  people  paid ;  revenues  equalling  those  ex- 
acted by  the  domination  of  the  Parthians,  or  by  the  power  of  the  Ro- 
mans.' " 

This  last  translation  was  evidently  a  free  one.  such  as  a  Romr.n  con- 
queror might  understand.  But  in  substance  it  was  true,  and  shows  that 
hieroglyphs  were  merely  used  for  pompous  state  inscriptions.  The  same 
has  Champollion  found  out  by  his  discovery. 


212  GENTILISM. 

St.  Clement  calls  it,  which,  he  says,  "  the  sacred  scribes  practise." 
And  the  description  he  gives  of  some  of  them,  in  another  chap- 
ter of  his  "  Stromata,"  shows  that  they  were  the  very  ones  so 
celebrated  under  the  name  of  Hermetic  books,  as  he  attributes 
them  himself  to  Hermes.  The  whole  passage  is  so  important 
to  our  purpose  that  we  must  give  it  entire.  And  the  object 
of  the  illustrious  author,  in  this  particular  instance,  being  to 
show  that  the  Greeks  had  derived  "  many  of  their  philosophical 
and  religious  tenets  from  Egyptian  and  Hindoo  sources,"  as  he 
had  proved,  in  a  previous  very  long  chapter,  that  they  had 
likewise  "  plagiarized  from  the  Hebrews,"  lends  to  it  a  special 
interest  and  value  in  our  present  investigations. 

(Strom.,  Book  vi.,  Chap,  iv.)  We  quote  from  the  recent 
Edinburgh  edition  of  the  Aute-Nicene  Fathers :  "  The  best 
of  the  (Greek)  philosophers,  having  appropriated  their  most 
excellent  dogmas  from  us — namely,  from  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures— boast,  as  it  were,  of  certain  of  the  tenets  which  pertain 
to  each  (philosophical)  sect  (among  them)  being  culled  from 
other  barbarians,  chiefly  from  the  Egyptians  —  both  other 
tenets,  and  that  especially  of  the  transmigration  of  the  soul. 
For  the  Egyptians  pursue  a  philosophy  of  their  own.  This  is 
principally  shown  by  their  sacred  ceremonial.  For  first  ad- 
vances the  Singer,  bearing  some  one  of  the  symbols  of  music. 
For  they  say  that. he  must  learn  two  of  the  books  of  Hermes, 
the  one  of  which  contains  the  hymns  of  the  gods,  the  second 
the  regulations  for  the  king's  life.  After  the  Singer,  advances 
the  Astrologer,  with  a  horologe  in  his  hand,  and  a  palm,  the 
symbol  of  astrology.  He  must  have  the  astrological  books  of 
Hermes,  which  are  four  in  number,  always  in  his  mouth.  Of 
these,  one  is  about  the  order  of  the  fixed  stars  that  are  visible, 
and  another  about  the  conjunctions  and  luminous  appearances 
of  the  sun  and  moon ;  and  the  rest  respecting  their  risings. 
Xext  in  order  advances  the  Sacred  Scribe,  with  wings  on  his 
head,  and  in  his  hand  a  book  and  rule,  in  which  were  writing- 


CENTRAL   ASIA   AND    AFKICA.  213 

ink  and  the  reed  with  which  they  write.  And  he  must  be 
acquainted  with  what  are  called  hieroglyphs,  and  know  about 
cosmography  and  geography,  the  position  of  the  sun  and  moon, 
and  about  the  five  planets  ;  also  the  description  of  Egypt,  and 
the  chart  of  the  Nile ;  and  the  description  of  the  equipment 
of  the  priests  and  of  the  places  consecrated  to  them,  and  about 
the  measures  and  the  things  in  use  in  the  sacred  rites.  Then 
the  Stole-keeper  follows  those  previously  mentioned,  with  the 
cubit  of  justice  and  the  cup  for  libations.  He  is  acquainted 
with  all  points  called  Psedeutic  (relating  to  training)  and 
Moschophatic  (sacrificial).  There  are  also  ten  books  which 
relate  to  the  honor  paid  by  them  to  their  gods,  and  containing 
the  Egyptian  worship — as  that  relating  to  sacrifices,  first-fruits, 
hymns,  prayers,  processions,  festivals,  and  the  like.  And  be- 
hind all  walks  the  Prophet,  with  the  water-vase  carried  openly 
in  his  arms  ;  who  io  followed  by  those  who  carry  the  issue  of 
loaves.  He,  as  being  the  governor  of  the  temple,  learns  the 
ten  books  called  '  Hieratic ; '  and  they  contain  all  about  the 
laws,  and  the  gods,  and  the  whole  of  the  training  of  the  priests. 
For  the  Prophet  is,  among  the  Egyptians,  also  over  the  distri- 
bution of  the  revenues.  There  are,  then,  forty-two  books  of 
Hermes  indispensably  necessary ;  of  which  the  six-and-thirty. 
containing  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  Egyptians,  are  learned 
by  the  forementioned  personages ;  and  the  other  six,  which  are 
medical,  by  the  Pastophori  (image-bearers),  treating  of  the 
structure  of  the  body,  and  of  diseases,  and  instruments,  and 
medicines,  and  about  the  eyes,  and  the  last  about  women. 
Such  are  the  customs  of  the  Egyptians,  to  speak  briefly." 

From  the  very  wray  of  expressing  himself,  it  is  evident  St. 
Clement  meant  to  say  that  all  this  existed  in  his  time,  and  he 
had  probably  witnessed  the  ceremony. 

From  this  very  clear  and  interesting  description,  we  may 
safely  conclude  that  we  have  here  evidently  mention  made  of 
what  we  have  already  called  the  Yedas  of  Egypt.  In  these 


214  GENTILISM. 

forty-two  Hermetic  books  we  find  the  whole  science  of  the 
Egyptians,  that  science  in  which  "  Moses  had  been  taught." 
In  Hindostan,  it  is  true,  the  Brahmins  were  to  study  constantly 
the  Vedas,  to  know  them  by  heart,  and  transmit  orally  their 
interpretation  ;  and  the  Vedas,  as  we  have  seen  previously,  con- 
tained all  the  science  of  the  Hindoos,  in  a  series  of  details 
exactly  corresponding  with  those  of  the  Hermetic  books  as  de- 
scribed by  St.  Clement.  But  the  recommendation  addressed 
to  the  Brahmins  in  India  was  a  general  one.  Each  man  was 
commanded  to  study  and  know  by  heart  the  whole  large  col- 
lection of  the  Hindoo  scriptures.  Here,  on  the  contrary, 
priests  invested  with  particular  functions,  had  to  commit  to 
memory,  and  study  thoroughly,  some  particular  part  of  the 
Hermetic  books.  We  may  suppose,  it  is  true,  that  each  one 
of  the  priests  was  to  be  likewise  acquainted  with  the  whole 
collection,  and  have  a  general  knowledge  of  them ;  but  each 
particular  minister  of  religion  was  to  give  his  especial  attention 
to  a  single  branch  of  the  whole ;  and  we  see  nowhere  in  Hin- 
dostan such  a  distribution  of  mental  labor  recommended  to 
specific  classes  of  Brahmins.  But  keeping  in  view  this  distinc- 
tion, how  well  all  else  agrees  amongst  both  people  no  one  can 
deny. 

We  shall  have  occasion  to  remark  many  other  points  of 
resemblance  between  the  two  races.  This  first  one  is  suffi- 
ciently striking. 

But  how  did  it  happen  that  we  have  yet  the.  "Vedas  and  we 
cannot  hope  ever  to  find  an  authentic  copy  of  the  books  of 
Hermes  ?  In  India,  the  primitive  religion,  following  the  back- 
ward progress  of  which  we  spoke,  was  always,  nevertheless, 
supposed  to  exist ;  and  the  most  corrupt  generations  of  our 
days  practising  in  the  dark  the  abominable  doctrines  of  the 
tantras,  profess  still  as  great  a  veneration  for  the  Yedas  as  their 
ancestors  of  three  thousand  years  ago.  Mohammedanism  never 
had  any  chance  of  converting  Hindostan  to  its  doctrines,  and 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFRICA.  215 

made  'a  very  slight  impression  on  the  country.  Christianity 
itself  has  sc-arcely  moved  it  yet.  The  missionaries  of  the  true 
Church,  led  by  the  great  Francis  Xavier,  were,  indeed,  begin- 
ning to  turn  the  heart  of  the  people  towards  the  true  "  Brah- 
ma," when  the  Dutch  first,  and  afterwards  the  English,  thought 
they  would  serve  God  best  by  undoing  what  the  successors  of 
Xavier  were  zealously  endeavoring  to  effect,  and  prevented  the 
happy  impulse  given  to  truth  in  the  sixteenth  century,  from 
becoming  a  universal  movement  toward  the  unification  of  the 
human  race.  The  consequence  was,  the  Hindoos  are  yet  idola- 
ters ;  but  they,  nevertheless,  keep  jealously  their  Yedas. 

In  Egypt  the  case  was  altogether  different.  Mark  was  sent 
by  Peter  to  Alexandria.  A  number  of  holy  doctors,  beginning 
by  Pautcenus,  founded  the  Alexandrian  Christian  school,  and  in 
spite  of  the  persecutions  of  pagan  emperors,  Egypt  in  the 
fourth,  or  at  least  fifth,  century,  was  altogether  Christian.  The 
idolatrous  ceremonies,  frequent  yet  in  the  time  of  Origen,  as 
he  often  testifies,  and  still  in  full  sway  in  the  time  of  St. 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  gradually  fell  into  disuse,  and  at  length 
disappeared  altogether.  The  Hermetic  books  had  no  more  any 
object.  The  Christian  teachers  must  have  discountenanced  the 
indiscriminate  reading  of  them.  And,  when  the  Saracens  came 
with  their  hatred  of  everything  not  contained  in  the  Koran, 
they,  too,  disappeared,  no  one  can  say  precisely  how  or  when. 
The  story  of  the  water  in  the  public  baths  of  Alexandria  being 
heated  during  six  months  by  the  burning  volumes  of  the  pub- 
lic library,  if  not  altogether  untrue,  can  easily  explain  how  the 
old  works  of  Hermes  ceased  to  exist,  as  the  same  destructive 
measure  must  have  been  carried  out  all  over  the  country.  But 
previously  to  this,  the  Christians,  by  publishing  false  Hermetic 
books,  which  circulated  more  freely  in  a  Christian  country  than 
the  authentic  ones,  written  in  a  character  soon  forgotten ;  and 
before  them  the  ^Teoplatonic  philosophers  of  Alexandria,  by  a 
series  of  analogous  forgeries,  contributed,  likewise,  considerably 


216  GENTILISM. 

towards  their  disappearance.  To  understand  this  more  fully,  a 
few  remarks  on  the  compilation  itself  will  not  be  inappropriate. 

In  the  common  opinion  of  all,  they  had  been  written  origi- 
nally by  Thoth  himself  ;  that  is,  they  were  divine  ;  as,  indeed, 
were  the  Vedas  in  the  belief  of  the  Hindoos.  Thoth  was  the 
Egyptian  Logos  ;  for  the  name  means  "  speech "  or  "  word." 
The  real  authors  of  the  Hermetic  books,  therefore,  were  un- 
known ;  and  thus  the  compilation  was  supposed  to  contain  a 
real  "revelation"  from  heaven,  from  the  Divine  Word  itself. 

"We  have  seen  that,  according  to  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
they  were  forty-two  in  number  in  his  time.  lamblichus  pre- 
tended there  were  of  them  as  many  as  twenty  thousand ;  and 
Manetho,  not  satisfied  with  this,  made  them  equal  in  number 
to  the  astronomical  cycle  of  thirty-six  thousand  five  hundred 
and  twenty-five.  But  these  pretensions  were  evidently  fabu- 
lous. The  opinion  of  the  Alexandrian  Father  of  the  Church 
is  the  only  reasonable  one ;  especially  as  he  goes  into  details 
and  mentions  how  many  of  them  related  to  geometry,  geogra- 
phy, and  astronomy,  to  cosmogony  and  theological  science,  to 
law  and  justice,  to  the  religious  ritual,  prayers,  sacrifices,  pro- 
cessions, etc. ;  finally  to  medicine,  anatomy,  physiology,  and 
sexual  considerations. 

Many  ancient  classical  authors  distinguished  two  different 
Thoths  or  Hermes ;  the  first,  real  and  divine,  the  Thoth  of 
whom  we  have  just  spoken  ;  and  another  much  later,  bearing 
the  name  of  Trismegistus,  given  him  chiefly  by  the  Neopla- 
tonic  philosophers  and  the  mediaeval  alchymists.  According 
to  many  ancient  writers  the  books  given  to  Egypt  by  the  first 
Thoth  were  no  more  in  existence.  But  those  of  the  second 
personage  were  of  almost,  if  not  quite,  equal  authority;  and 
these  were,  in  fact,  the  only  ones  known  to  the  Egypt  of  the 
Pharaohs.  This  distinction  is  no  more  taken  into  account  by 
modern  writers  on  the  subject ;  although  it  does  not  appear  to 
us  to  be  deserving  altogether  of  neglect.  On  the  strength  of 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  217 

it  we  must  be  permitted  to  conjecture  that  idolatry  penetrated 
into  Egypt  very  soon  after  the  first  settlement  of  the  country 
by  Menes ;  and  that  thus  the  pure  monotheism  contained  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  first  Thoth  was  so  anciently  corrupted 
by  the  innovations  of  Trismegistus,  that  the  memory  of  the 
first  was  only  preserved  in  a  vague  tradition.  This  certainly 
did  not  happen  to  the  Hindoo  Yedas,  whose  primitive  pure 
text  remained  yet  clear  in  many  upanishads,  even  after  the 
progress  of  time  had  spread  new  and  false  interpretations  of 
the  primeval  dogmas. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  we  are  compelled  to  limit  our  investiga- 
tions to  the  Hermetic  books,  such  as  they  existed  during  many 
ages  in  the  country  ;  and  to  ask  ourselves  if  we  can  find  here 
and  there  in  antiquity  a  few  fragments  from  which  we  may 
infer  something  of  the  original  belief  of  the  people  contained 
in  them. 

Had  we  the  forty-two  volumes  known  to  exist  by  St.  Cle- 
ment, we  might  find  in  them  numerous  allusions  of  a  most  pre- 
cious character,  able  to  guide  us  in  our  investigations.  But,  as 
we  hinted  above,  when  the  Christian  religion  came  to  be  that 
of  all  Egyptians,  in  the  fourth  or  fifth  century  of  our  era,  two 
kinds  of  spurious  Hermetic  volumes  were  spread  all  over  the 
country,  and  helped  to  the  complete  disappearance  of  the  gen- 
uine work.  First  in  point  of  time  certainly,  some  of  the  ~Neo- 
platonists,  chiefly  lamblichus,  Porphyry,  and,  later  on,  Proclus, 
thought  they  had  found  in  the  old  Egyptian  literature  arms 
against  Christianity,  which  they  opposed  all  their  life.  Hence 
they  tried  to  uphold  polytheism  by  explaining  away  its  absurdi- 
ties, through  a  series  of  philosophical  speculations ;  in  about 
the  same  way  as  our  modern  "  mythologists  "  try  their  best  to 
render  not  only  tolerable  to  reason,  but  even  worthy  of  admira- 
tion and  respect,  the  idolatrous  rites  of  ancient  nations.  One 
of  them,  Thomas  Taylor,  an  English  pagan  enthusiast,  the 
translator  of  Apuleius'  "  God  of  Socrates,"  commenting  on 


218  GE^TILISM. 

the  work  of  Proclus  on  the  "  Timseus  of  Plato,"  at  the  end  of 
a  long  praise  of  Egyptian  and  Greek  mythology,  dares  to  say : 
"  If  we  unite  this  with  the  preceding  theory,  there  is  nothing  in 
the  ancient  theology  (meaning  polytheism)  that  will  not  appear 
admirably  sublime  and  beautifully  connected,  accurate  in  all  its 
parts,  scientific  and  divine."  This  admiration  of  Egyptian  poly- 
theism the  Neoplatonists  of  Alexandria  endeavored  to  render 
prevalent,  chiefly  by  using  the  Ilermetic  books  for  their  pur- 
pose, adapting  them  to  their  philosophical  ideas,  and  draw- 
ing from  them  a  doctrine  apparently  acceptable  to  modern 
reason.  But  in  that  operation  the  original  text  must  have 
been  subjected  to  a  great  many  exegetic  changes.  And  as 
that  text  was  rendered  in  those  characters  and  that  style  which 
we  have  called  "hieratic,"  and  which  gradually  became  un- 
known as  the  pagan  worship  was  superseded  by  Christianity,  a 
new  form  of  the  Ilermetic  books  was  gradually  introduced  which 
served  to  obliterate  the  memory  of  the  former  ones ;  especially 
as  the  new  were  written  in  Greek,  a  language  well  known  to  all, 
while  the  old  hieratic  Egyptian  style  fell  into  complete  disuse. 
The  Christians,  on  their  side,  seeing  what  was  done  to  spread 
error  by  means  of  the  ancient  literature  of  the  country,  began 
to  study  it  anew,  and  found,  in  the  primitive  volumes  of  Her- 
mes, many  passages  which  appeared  to  them  corroborative  of 
Christian  dogmas.  Thus  Egypt  soon  received  a  new  edition  of 
them,  and  the  original  books  were  destined  to  be  buried  in  a 
deeper  oblivion  than  ever.  The  subsequent  violent  destruction 
caused  by  the  Mohammedan  fanaticism  completed  the  wreck. 
And  if  we  inquire,  finally,  why,  in  Hindostan,  the  Yedas  were 
preserved  in  spite  of  so  many  revolutions  and  invasions,  and 
why  Mohammedanism,  in  particular,  did  not  destroy  them, 
whilst  it  gave  the  last  stroke  to  the  existence  of  the  Ilermetic 
books  in  Egypt,  an  obvious  answer  is  at  hand.  The  Hindoo 
priesthood  never  perished  ;  and  it  subsists  to  this  day,  intent 
as  much  as  ever  on  the  keeping,  preserving,  and  studying  its 


CENTKAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  219 

sacred  books.  The  Egyptian  priesthood,  to  which  was  intrusted 
the  same  particular  care  of  the  books  of  Hermes,  ceased  to 
exist  altogether  when  Christianity  succeeded  at  length  in  con- 
verting the  whole  country,  and  in  abolishing  altogether  the 
worship  of  Osiris  and.  Isis. 


III. 


But  let  us  ask  ourselves  the  question,  Why  is  it  that  the 
platonists,  and  after  them  the  Christians,  attached  so  much 
importance  to  effecting  alterations  of  the  text  of  the  Egyptian 
Sacred  Scripture  ?  Did  the  new  books  retain  something,  at  least, 
of  their  primitive  contents  ?  The  Neoplatonist  philosophy  has 
attracted  the  notice  of  many  philosophers  in  our  age,  but  of 
none  more  than  of  Victor  Cousin,  the  celebrated  French  Ec- 
lectic, who  popularized  the  ideas,  on  the  subject,  of  Fichte  and 
others  in  Germany.  Later  on,  Simon,  Barthelemy  St.  Hilaire, 
Lewes,  and  Tennemann,  completed  the  work  ;  and  we  may  say 
that  the  tendencies  and  the  doctrines  of  the  school  are  now  thor- 
oughly appreciated.  It  is  admitted  by  all  that  its  main  object 
was  to  give  to  polytheism  a  scientific  basis  ;  that  the  chief 
means  used  for  that  purpose  was  the  mixture  of  Oriental  mys- 
ticism with  Plato's  ideas  ;  that  theurgy,  or  magic,  had  a 
great  function  to  fulfil  in  the  system,  by  attracting  the  morbid 
curiosity  so  prevalent  at  the  time  ;  and,  finally,  that  the  writ- 
ings of  Hermes  were  the  chief  source  of  the  new  inspiration. 
Proclus  believed  them  divine.  Long  before  him  lamblichus, 
Porphyry,  and  the  other  chief  adepts  of  the  sect,  quoted  them 
in  support  of  their  opinions.  And,  to  favor  their  design, 
a  Greek  edition  of  fifteen  volumes  of  Hermes  was  published  at 
Athens,  according  to  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria,  under  the  title  : 

EpfMUKO,    TTEVTKKdldeKa  |3i/3/Ua. 

Mosheim,  in  his  notes  on  Cudworth's  "  Systema  Intellectuale," 
pretends  that  all  the  spurious  books  of  Hermes  were  the  work 


220  GENTILISM. 

of  deluded  Christians,  and  that  if  the  Neoplatonists  began, 
after  a  while,  to  give  a  false  interpretation  of  them,  it  was  only 
in  pure  retaliation.  But  the  contrary  is  proved  ;  and  the  help 
given  to  Neoplatonism  by  these  forgeries  is  a  well-established 
fact.  As  to  the  time  of  their  first  appearance,  nothing  is 
known  for  certain.  Of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  Origen 
and  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  seem  to  have  been  ignorant' of 
them,  and  to  have  been  acquainted  only  with  the  genuine 
Hermetic  books.  Lactantius,  however,  was  acquainted  with 
them,  and  had  perused  them  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
fourth  century ;  and  all  the  subsequent  Greek  and  Latin 
Fathers  mention  them.  Of  the  Neoplatonists,  Ammonius 
Saccas,  the  founder  of  the  sect,  and  Plotinus,  who  succeeded 
him,  appear  to  have  been  unacquainted  with  those  Greek  for- 
geries. But  lamblichus  and  his  successors,  Proclus  chiefly, 
made  constant  use  of  them.  It  seems  clear  that  the  end  of  the 
third  century  is  the  real  epoch  of  their  appearance,  and  that 
Christianity  had  not  yet  triumphed  when  they  were  first  pub- 
lished. Hence  the  prophecy  contained  in  one  of  the  spurious 
volumes  (the  "Asclepius  "),  of  the  total  conversion  of  Egypt,  of 
the  possession  taken  of  the  pagan  temples  by  the  bones  of 
Christian  martyrs,  etc. — a  prophecy  which  St.  Augustine  (De 
Civ.  Dei,  Lib.  viii.,  Cap.  xxiii.)  considered  as  a  proof  of  the 
terror  of  devils  at  the  near  triumph  of  truth,  £nd  which 
Casaubon  and  Mosheim  found  too  clear  to  be  true,  and  attrib- 
uted, consequently,  to  Christians  after  it  had  been  itself  accom- 
plished, becomes  a  positive  historical  fact,  established  now 
by  modem  criticism. 

But,  such  being  the  case,  it  seems  that  we  cannot,  with  per- 
fect certainty,  know  from  them  what  was  the  genuine  doctrine 
of  the  primitive  books  of  Thoth.  Yet  very  important  conse- 
quences follow  from  this  statement  of  facts ;  and  the  general 
tendency  of  the  original  Egyptian  belief  may  be  gathered  from 
it  to  a  great  extent,  at  least. 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  221 

First,  the  forgery  must  have  been  a  clever  one,  and  have 
retained  a  great  deal  of  the  primitive  volumes  not  to  have  been 
exposed  at  once.  When  the  Greek  edition  was  published  at 
Athens,  the  pagan  worship,  as  described  by  St.  Clement,  was 
yet  prevalent  in  Egypt,  and  the  genuine  work  of  Thoth,  in 
hieratic  style,  still  existed  in  all  pagan  temples.  Many  Greek 
scholars  of  Alexandria  knew  yet  the  Egyptian  language,  and 
must  have  been  acquainted  with  the  genuine  writings  of  Her- 
mes. Indeed  lamblichus,  in  a  fragment  which  we  yet  possess, 
asserts  this  to  have  been  the  case.  And,  what  is  yet  more  to 
the  purpose,  he  mentions  that  the  very  question  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  the  Greek  edition  was  raised  in  his  time.  Porphyry, 
in  a  letter  to  Anebon,  an  Egyptian  priest,  had  stated  that 
Cheereinon  objected  to  this  interpretation,  and  he  wished  to 
know,  from  a  man  well  versed  in  both  languages,  what  was  the 
truth  in  the  matter.  The  reply  of  Anebon  has  not  come  down 
to  us  ;  but  lamblichus  gives  the  substance  of  it  by  stating, 
that  "  the  Greek  books  which  go  under  the  name  of  Hermes, 
contain  really  the  Hermaic  doctrine,  although  they  use  the 
phraseology  of  Greek  philosophers ;  for  they  were  translated 
from  the  Egyptian  language  by  men  well  versed  in  philosophy." 
We  may  conclude  that  much  of  the  writings  of  Thoth  was 
contained  in  the  Hellenic  version. 

But,  secondly,  the  question  comes,  How  can  we  distinguish 
the  genuine  from  the  spurious  ?  No  doubt,  much  obscurity 
must  always  surround  the  subject.  Yet,  we  may  possibly  make 
a  step  further  in  advance,  by  asking,  what  was  the  object  of 
the  authors  of  this  deception  ?  It  was  evidently  to  help  the 
cause  of  Neoplatonism — this  is  admitted,  now,  by  all — to  give 
to  polytheism  a  scientific  basis,  by  using  both  Plato's  writ- 
ings and  those  of  Hermes,  better  known  than  the  Brahminical 
books,  namely :  by  uniting  positive  Hellenic  philosophy  with 
Oriental  mysticism.  The  main  object  was  to  rescue  polytheism 
from  the  load  of  opprobrium  cast  upon  it  both  by  Greek  seep- 


222  GENTILISM. 

tics  of  Lucian's  type,  and  Christian  apologists,  as  Arnobius, 
Minutius  Felix,  and  others.  An  unextinguishable  laughter  had 
spread  all  over  the  world  at  the  expense  of  that  poor  paganism. 
Lucian  of  Samosata  had  started  it  by  his  pungent  sarcasm. 
His  books  were  in  the  hands  of  all.  And,  to  make  matters 
worse,  those  hateful  and  contemptible  Christians  had  found  a 
never-dying  well  of  pure  wit  in  the  remarkable  adventures  of 
gods  and  goddesses.  Hence,  the  whole  world  was  turning  its 
back  on  that  ridiculous  mythology,  and  looking  for  a  more  ra- 
tional religion  even  in  the  teachings  of  ths  Galilean  fishermen. 
How  could  the  movement  be  arrested '  more  successfully  than 
by  combining  what  was  highest  in  paganism — the  sublimity 
of  Plato's  clear  doctrine,  with  the  strange,  startling,  grand  the- 
ism of  ancient  seers,  like  Thoth,  whose  very  origin  went  far- 
ther back  than  the  memory  of  man,  and  the  revelation  of  his- 
tory could  go  ?  Plato,  after  all,  with  his  monotheism,  sacrificed 
to  inferior  gods;  and  Hermes,  by  his  mystic  language,  had 
given  rise  to  the  grand  pantheism  of  Orpheus,  whence  the  sub- 
sequent polytheism  had  sprung.  lamblichus  and  Porphyry 
could  now  successfully  resist  the  attacks  of  Christians,  support- 
ed, as  those  writers  were,  by  the  highest  and  noblest  efforts  of 
human  genius,  the  utterances  of  Thoth  and  of  Plato.  The  whole 
history  of  Neoplatonism,  at  least  from  the  time  of  lamblichus 
down,  seems  to  us  to  be  comprised  in  this  short  description. 
And  let  our  reader  mark  it  well :  the  philosophy  which  the 
ISTeoplatonists  endeavored  to  propagate,  was  to  start  from  a 
supreme,  self-existent,  all-powerful  God — the  Absolute.  So  well 
had  Christianity  succeeded,  in  three  hundred  years,  in  estab- 
lishing the  essential  truth  of  monotheism,  that  no  theory,  no 
speculation,  no  philosophy  could  hope  to  acquire  adherents, 
and  procure  a  following  which  did  not  propose  to  the  venera- 
tion of  mankind  a  great  Father  and  Lord  of  all. 

This  was  the  first  condition  of  success.     And  all  the  leaders 
of  the  system,  from  Ammonius  Saccas  and  Plotinus,  down  to 


CENTRAL   ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  223 

Proclus  and  his  disciples,  have  been  careful  to  place  at  the  head 
of  all  a  Supreme,  Infinite  Being,  whom  we  all  call  God.  And 
this  they  found  in  the  books  of  Thoth  as  well  as  in  those  of 
Plato.  The  dialogue,  "  Asclepius,"  already  quoted,  contains  a 
very  remarkable  passage,  which,  since  the  modern  discoveries 
in  Hindooism,  must  be  admitted  to  have  really  belonged  to  the 
old  work  of  Thoth,  since  it  reproduces  so  exactly  the  primitive 
Hindoo  doctrine  on  monotheism,  providence,  and  renovation 
of  worlds  by  cataclysm  and  fire.  We  quote  the  Latin  transla- 
tion as  given  by  Cudworth.  (Syst.  Intell.,  vol.  i.,  p.  492) : 
"Tune  itte  Dominus  et pater  Deus,  primipotens  et  unus  guber- 
nator  mundi,  intuens  in  mores  facta  que  hominum,  voluntate 
sua  (qiice  est  Dei  benignitas),  vitiis  resistens,  et  corruptelcB 
crrorem  revocans,  malignitatern  omnem  vel  alluvione  diluens, 
vel  igne  Gonsumens,  ad  antiquam  faoiem  mundum  revocdbit" 
And  a  few  pages  further  Cudworth  quotes  the  following  lines : 
"  Summus  qui  dicitur  Deus,  rector  gubernatorque  sensibilis 
mundi,  qui  in  se  complectitur  omnem  locum  omnemque  re- 
rum  substantidm."  Mosheim,  it  is  true,  remarks  in  his  notes, 
that  the  same  Hermetic  dialogue  is  full  of  the  most  super- 
stitious ideas  on  the  worship  of  idols.  From  this  we  may 
conclude  that  the  primitive  doctrine  did  not  remain  pure  in 
the  writings  of  Hermes  Trismegistus.  But  the  texts  just 
quoted  cannot  be  explained  except  on  the  supposition  of  a 
belief  in  one  God ;  whilst  the  admixture  of  superstition  with 
truth  is  only  what  we  have  already  found  in  the  Hindoo  Vedas. 
This  exactly  served  the  purpose  of  the  Neoplatonists ;  and  they 
accepted  both  sides  of  the  doctrine.  They  adopted  the  high  and 
the  true  in  order  to  help  themselves  in  advocating  and  teach- 
ing the  low  and  the  false. 

IY. 

"We  ought  not  to  be  surprised  that  the  sacred  books  of  the 
Egyptians  contained   originally  a  sublime  faith,  since  many 
16 


224  GENTILISM. 

ancient  authors  concur  in  attributing  it  to  them.  The  philoso- 
phers and  poets  of  antiquity  have  often  spoken  with  admira- 
tion of  their  esoteric  doctrine.  And  travellers,  even  such  as 
Herodotus,  when  relating  the  absurd  and  occasionally  revolting 
sights  which  presented  themselves  to  them  exteriorly  in  the 
country,  often  refer  to  secret  explanations,  which  set  them 
forth  as  connected  with  a  high  and  pure  doctrine.  Origen 
himself  alludes  to  it  (Contra.  Cels.,  Lib.  1,  Cap.  xii.),  when  he 
says:  "  With  regard  to  the  statement  of  Celsus,  that  he  is  ac- 
quainted with  all  our  doctrines, ....  he  appears  to  me  to  speak 
very  much  as  a  person  would  do,  who  visited  Egypt  (where  the 
Egyptians,  learned  in  their  country's  literature,  are  greatly 
given  to  philosophizing  about  those  things  which  are  regarded 
among  them  'as  divine,  but  where  the  vulgar,  hearing  certain 
myths  the  reasons  of  which  they  do  not  understand,  are  greatly 
elated  because  of  their  fancied  knowledge),  and  who  should 
imagine  that  hs  knows  the  whole  circle  of  Egyptian  science, 
after  having  been  a  disciple  of  the  ignorant  alone,  and  without 
having  associated  with  any  of  the  priests,  or  "having  learned 
their  mysteries  from  any  other  source." 

We  have  no  doubt  that  many  of  those  pretended  deep 
secrets  were,  after  all,  very  flimsy  affairs,  and  could  not  satisfy 
a  serious  and  inquisitive  mind.  Yet  it  cannot  be  denied  that 
some  of  the  greatest  Sages  of  Greece,  who  travelled  through 
the  country  and  heard  the  comments  of  the  priests  on  the' 
exterior  symbols  of  religion,  professed  themselves  admirers  of  a 
wisdom  which  they  thought  could  not  then  be  found  anywhere 
else  on  earth. 

The  dogma  of  a  positive  creation  of  the  universe,  for  instance,  . 
seems  to  have  been  one  of  those  esoteric  traditions  kept  in  the 
land  of  mystery.  Simplicius,  at  least,  who  lived,  it  is  -true, 
only  in  the  sixth  century,  but  who  is  considered  by  Bruckner 
and  Fabricius  as  one  of  the  greatest  pagan  philosophers,  whose 
commentaries  on  Epictetus  and  Aristotle  were  translated  into 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  225 

Latin  first,  and  afterwards  into  English  and  French  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  as  the  best  in  existence,  did  not  scruple  to 
say  that  "  if  the  legislator  of  the  Jews  affirmed  that  God  in 
the  beginning  created  heaven  and  earth,  .  .  .  and  separated 
light  from  '  darkness,'  etc,  let  an  intelligent  man  know  that 
this  is  merely  a  fabulous  tradition  born  altogether  of  Egyptian 
myths."  (In  Arist.,  Lib.  viii.)  For  Simplicius,  so  late  as  the 
reign  of  Justinian,  believed  in  the  eternity  of  the  world. 

The  immortality  of  the  soul,  coupled,  as  in  India,  with  the 
doctrine  of  transmigration,  was  publicly  affirmed  by  their  care 
in  embalming  bodies  to  which  the  soul  was  to  return  in  three 
thousand  years.  Thus  they  admitted  a  real  resurrection  of  the 
body. 

Of  the  existence  of  one  Supreme  God  we  have  already 
spoken ;  but  the  teaching  that  "  man  ought  to  love  and  fear 
Him "  is  curiously  illustrated  by  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria, 
(Strom.,  Book  v.,  Chap,  v.) :  "The  Egyptians  place  sphinxes 
before  their  temples,  to  signify  that  the  doctrine  respecting 
God  is  enigmatical  and  obscure ;  perhaps,  also,  to  teach  men 
that  we  ought  both  to  love  and  fear  the  Divine  Being ;  to  love 
Him  as  gentle  and  benign  to  the  pious  ;  to  fear  Him  as  inexor- 
ably just  to  the  impious ;  for  the  sphinx  shows  the  image  of  a 
wild  beast  and  of  a  human  being  together." 

It  is  very  remarkable,  that,  not  only  the  ancient  Greek 
philosophers  who  visited  Egypt,  not  only  the  Neoplatonists, 
lamblichus,  Porphyry,  Proclus,  etc.,  but  even  the  Greek 
Fathers  of  the  Church,  chiefly  those  who  could  form  a  correct 
judgment  of  it,  Origen,  St.  Clement,  and  St.  Cyril  of  Alexan- 
dria, speak  nearly  always  with  respect  of  the  mysterious 
doctrine  of  the  Egyptians,  and  certainly  attribute  to  them  a 
real  belief  in  monotheism.  There  are,  assuredly,  positive  asser- 
tions in  St.  Justin  Martyr  (Cohortat  ad  Graecos),  in  St.  Cyprian 
(De  idol,  vanitate),  in  St.  Augustine  (De  baptismo,  Lib.  vi.  §  87), 
in  St.  Cyril  of  Alexandria  (Lib.  1,  Contra  Julianum),  to  the  effect 


226  GENTTLISJT. 

that  the  books  of  Hermes  acknowledged  a  supreme,  ineffable, 
and  eternal  God.  St.  Justin  Martyr  states  positively  that  His 
name  was  Aminon. 

Hence,  after  the  Neoplatonists  had  produced,  in  support  of 
their  doctrine,  the  translation  of  the  Hermetic  books  of  which 
we  spoke,  the  Christians  likewise  published  their  own,  and 
among  others  the  book  called  "Poemander ''  and  the  "Sermo  in 
monte  de  regeneratione"  Marsilio  Ficino,  who  tried  to  revive 
Platonism  under  the  Medici  in  Florence,  gave  an  edition  of 
them,  which,  we  think,  it  would  be  hard  now  to  procure.  But 
it  suffices  for  our  purpose  to  know  what  was  the  object  of  the 
original  compilers.  They  wished  to  deprive  their  adversary — 
the  pagans — of  a  weapon  which  they  had  found  useful.  We 
do  not  pretend  to  decide  on  the  morality  of  their  action.  Was 
it  confined  to  reproducing  only  the  text  of  some  of  the  old 
Hermetic  writings?  which  would  have  been  fair;  or  did  it 
include  real  literary  forgery  ?  No  one  can  say.  It  is  known 
to  the  literary  world  how  frequent  was  the  use  of  such  forged 
tools,  about  the  same  time.  We  cannot  enter  into  the  examin- 
ation of  the  question.  We  conclude  from  it  only  that,  even 
then,  when  the  genuine  works  attributed  to  Hermes  were 
certainly  yet  in  existence,  the  Christians  could  truly  claim  a 
great  resemblance  between  several  tenets  of  old  Egypt  and  their 
own. 

But,  a  new  argument  offers  itself  to  our  consideration,  and  it 
is  one  of  no  inconsiderable  importance.  If  the  Egyptians 
worshipped  at  first  one  God  only — as  the  Hindoos  did,  viz. : 
Brahma  (neuter) — there  must  have  been  for  them  some  divine 
name  superior  to  any  other,  corresponding  to  the  Jehovah  of 
the  Jews,  the  Brahma  of  the  Hindoos,  the  Ornmzd  of  the 
Bactrians.  What  was  it?  It  was  Amun  (simpliciter),  not 
Amun-Ra. 

First,  the  worship  of  Amun  was  not  confined  to  Egypt,  but 
extended  over  to  Ethiopia,  and  some  say  to  a  great  part  of 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  227 

interior  Africa.  The  temple  built  south-west  of  Lake  Mareo- 
tis  was  not  the  most  important,  nor  the  most  ancient  one.  The 
centre  out  of  which  the  worship  of  Amun  radiated  was  in  fact 
iu  Ethiopia,  not  far  from,  and  south-east  of  Meroe.  Hence 
the  Greeks  called  that  god  sometimes  Zev$  siifivKog,  Libya  being 
for  them  the  name  of  Africa.  It  was  not,  therefore,  a  local 
god,  of  later  origin,  embalming  a  fact  of  previous  history  with 
respect  to  a  single  city,  or  to  a  particular  district  of  the  country. 
It  was  the  chief  God  of  the  whole  continent,  and  had  not  a 
human  history  like  Osiris  and  Isis,  both  of  whom,  according  to 
Plutarch  (De  Iside  et  Osiride),  had  "  passed  to  godship  from 
the  inferior  state  of  good  genii,"  or  men.  Hence,  although 
the  cult  of  these  two  last  divinities  extended  to  all  Egypt,  that 
of  Osiris  was  altogether  local,  at  Abydos ;  and  that  of  Isis,  at 
Bubastis.  The  worship  of  Amun  could  not  be  said  to  have 
been  local,  even  at  Thebes,  although  the  sacred  name  of  that 
city  was  No-Amun.  The  temple  in  Ethiopia,  near  Shendy, 
consequently  on  the  borders  of  Central  Africa,  and  near  the 
confluence  of  the  White  and  Blue  Niles,  was  certainly  more 
august,  ancient,  and  peculiar  to  Amun  than  any  other  in  Egypt 
and  out  of  it.  The  discoveries  of  Caillaud  and  Elphinstone, 
commented  upon  by  Heeren  in  his  "Researches  on  African 
Nations,"  have  placed  the  fact  beyond  question  ;  and  all  those 
acquainted  with  the  origin  and  state  of  the  various  religions  of 
antiquity  will  admit  its  importance.  Great  difficulties  sur- 
rounded the  question,  because  of  the  frequent  indistinctness  of 
ancient  classical  authors  with  respect  to  topography  and  local 
details.  Hence,  even  learned  men  in  modern  times  had 
become  persuaded  that  the  Ammonium  so  celebrated  in  antir 
quity  was  at  Siwah  in  Lybia,  west  of  Memphis,  not  far  from 
Lake  Mareotis ;  and  the  worship  of  Amun  was  thought  to  be 
altogether  Egyptian.  But  after  a  deep  and  critical  investigation 
such  as  the  celebrated  Professor  of  Gottingen  knew  so  well  how 
to  accomplish,  comparing  the  text  and  plates  of  the  two  French 


228  GENTILISM. 

and  English  travellers  (Caillaud  and  Elphinstone),  with  what 
old  classical  writers  have  reported,  he  gave  a  complete  demon- 
stration of  the  fact  that  the  great  temple  of  Aniun  was  south 
of  Meroe  in  Ethiopia,  near  Shendy,  almost  at  the  confluence  of 
the  two  Niles.  Then,  entering  into  a  long  and  learned  discus- 
sion of  what  antiquity  has  said  of  this  country,  he  showed  that 
the  time  of  its  greatest  splendor  was  the  eighth  century  before 
Christ,  when  Sabaco,  Senechus,  and  Tarhaco  ruled  it ;  that  at 
the  period  of  Solomon,  ten  centuries  before  our  era,  at  the  time 
of  the  Trojan  war — we  invite  special  attention  to  this — it  could 
send  large  armies  to  the  conquest  of  foreign  countries ;  that 
many  monuments  of  Nubia  and  Ethiopia,  still  in  full  preserva- 
tion, represent  Harnesses,  or  Sesostris,  with  as  much  splendor  as 
at  Thebes  and  Luxor ;  and  drew  hence  the  inevitable  conclusion 
that  it  was  a  civilized  country  fifteen  centuries  before  Christ. 
This  brings  us  nearly  to  Moses,  whom  Josephus  represents  as 
commanding  the  armies  of  Pharaoh,  and  conquering  the  South, 
and  Heeren  can  conclude  in  these  words :  "  History  itself 
has  carried  us  back  to  those  ages  in  which  the  formation  of  the 
most  ancient  States  took  place,  and  has  thus  far  shown  that 
Meroe  was  one  of  them."  This  brings  the  belief  in  Amun  to 
the  times  of  the  highest  antiquity.  But  the  most  important 
details  mentioned  by  the  celebrated  writer  we  have  not  yet 
stated.  The  first  is,  that  although  Kubia  and  Ethiopia  are  full 
of  splendid  monuments,  some  of  them  of  the  purest  Egyptian 
art,  with  all  the  richness  of  architecture  and  sculpture  that  has 
rendered  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs  so  celebrated ;  although  the 
language  of  the  travellers  who  first  visited  them  is  most  positive 
qn  the  subject :  "  These  colossal  figures,"  says  Caillaud,  "  are 
remarkable  for  the  richness  of  their  drapery  and  the  character 
of  the  drawing ;  their  feet  and  arms  are  stouter  than  the  Egyp- 
tian, yet  they  are  altogether  in  the  Egyptian  style ;"  and  "  Rup- 
pel,"  says  Heeren,  "notices  a  similar  perfection  on  the  pyramids 
of  Kurgos  in  the  same  neighborhood ;"  yet  when  they  come  to 


CENTKAL   ASIA   AND   AFRICA.  229 

examine  the  mass  of  noble  ruins  which  the  Professor  of  Gottin- 
gen  declares  emphatically  to  be  "  THE  AXCIENT  ORACLE  OF 
JUPITEK  AMMOX,"  everything  is  of  quite  a  different  character. 
;'  The  rarity  of  sculpture  and  hieroglyphs,."  he  relates,  "  is  very 
remarkable ;  no  trace  of  that  Egyptian  art  has  been  discovered 
here.  The  few  figures  on  the  pillars,  now  scarcely  visible,  have 
nothing  in  common  with  it.  One  of  them  has  evidently  the 
hair  done  up  in  the  broad  Nubian  fashion."  The  reason  is 
plain  :  this  edifice  is  more  ancient  than  all  the  other  monu- 
ments. It  existed,  probably,  before  the  folly  of  idolatry  had 
covered  Africa  with  the  representation  of  polytheistic  myths. 
Thus  with  respect  to  Amun,  the  monuments  agree  with  history. 
Another,  and  most  important  fact,  which  we  think  extremely 
significant,  is  given  by  Heeren  in  the  following  words :  "  One 
thing  is  very  remarkable,  namely,  that  of  all  the  representations 
of  Xubia  yet  known,  there  is  not  one,  which,  according  to  our 
notions,  is  offensive  to  decency."  They  are,  therefore,  anterior 
to  the  introduction  of  obscene  emblems  in  the  public  worship 
of  the  people.  At  least  we  are  allowed  to  think  so  until  the 
contrary  is  proved  by  monuments  as  yet  undiscovered.  The 
same  strange  fact  we  have  already  remarked  in  Ilindostan. 

But  a  third,  and,  if  possible,  more  striking  conclusion  drawn 
by  Heeren  himself  from  all  the  facts  accumulated  in  his 
"  Researches  "  is  this  :  that  although  he  does  not  believe  that 
all  the  civilization  of  Egypt  came  from  Ethiopia,  but  thinks 
that  a  part  of  it  was  native,  and  even  reacted  on  Ethiopia 
itself  by  conquest,  institutions,  religion,  and  art ;  yet  he  is  most 
positive  in  asserting  that  "  colonies  of  the  priest-caste  spread 
from  Meroe  into  Egypt."  This  happened  according  to  the 
oracle  of  Ammon  :  "  They  undertook  their  expeditions  at  the 
time  and  to  the  place  appointed  by  the  god  "  (Herodot,  ii.  29). 
And  the  learned  writer  goes  on  investigating  this  civilizing 
religious  process  from  Central  Africa  to  the  basin  of  the  lower 
,  and  tries  to  prove  that  Merawe*,  Ammonium  in  the  Lybian 


230  GEXTILISM. 

desert,  west  of  Memphis,  and  Thebes — Amun-No — with  its  cele- 
brated temple  of  the  same  deity,  were  really  cojonies  originally 
from  Ethiopia,  from  the  old  temple  of  Amun  there ;  and  he 
thinks  he  finds  his  own  historical  researches  confirmed  by  the 
discoveries  of  Gau,  Champollion,  and  others  in  their  studies 
of  the  monuments  of  Upper  and  Lower  Egypt. 

This  last  conclusion  of  the  Gottingen  Professor  is  now  con- 
sidered as  disproved  by  the  monuments.  "As  for  the  opinion 
once  generally  admitted  "  (say  F.  Lenormant  and  E.  Chevallier 
in  their  Ancient  History  of  the  East,  Tom.  1)  "  that  the 
Egyptians  belonged  to  an  African  race  whose  first  centre  of 
civilization  was  at  Meroe,  and  who  had  gradually  descended 
from  the  banks  of  the  Nile  to  the  sea,  it  cannot  now  be  sus- 
tained. We  know,  in  fact,  from  the  monuments,  that  the 
most  ancient  centre  of  Egyptian  civilization  was  in  the  neigh- 
borhood of  Memphis,  in  Lower  and  Central  Egypt,  before 
even  the  foundation  of  Thebes  ;  and  we  can  follow  the  gradual 
march  of  -culture,  ascending  the  ISTile  towards  Ethiopia,  in  a 
way  exactly  the  reverse  of  what  has  hitherto  been  supposed." 

The  recent  researches  and  discoveries  of  new  explorers, 
chiefly  of  Mariette-Bey,  seem  certainly  to  afford  a  sufficient 
proof  of  this  last  opinion.  Yet  Heeren  had  so  many  very 
plausible  reasons  to  give  in  support  of  his  conclusions,  that 
they  may  yet  be  reinstated  in  general  acceptance ;  and  it  is  for 
this  we  have  given  them  in  some  detail.  At  any  rate,  the 
extreme  antiquity  of  the  civilization  of  Ethiopia,  and  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  worship  of  Amun  at  Meroe  in  the  most  remote 
ages,  cannot  be  "  disproved,"  and  amply  suffice  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  our  own  thesis. 

Finally,  a  last  remarkable  opinion  of  Heeren  we  will  quote 
in  his  own  words,  and  pass  on  to  look  more  closely  at  Amun 
himself,  the  real  object  of  our  actual  investigations.  "  With- 
out digressing,"  he  says,  "  into  a  detailed  description  of  par- 
ticular deities,  which  I  leave  to  mythologists,  I  think  I  may 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFRICA.  231 

venture  a  step  further,  and  assert  that  this  worship  of  Ainun 
had  its  origin  in  natural  religion  connected  with  agriculture." 
The  underline  is  ours  ;  but  we  think  that,  in  th3  opinion  of  all, 
natural  religion  implies  monotheism. 


Y. 


And,  now,  who  was  Amun  ?  We  have  said  already  that  we 
do  not  mean  Amun-R,a.  This  last  god,  He/uof  in  Greek, 
begins  to  appear  on  the  monuments  of  the  eighteenth  dynasty 
only.  He  is  therefore  a  comparatively  modern  invention,  and 
we  will  shortly  find  in  it  a  corroboration  of  our  peculiar  belief 
on  the  gradual  progress  of  idolatry. 

It  seems  that  even  in  the  temple  of  Karnac  at  Thebes,  which 
is  more  recent  than  the  old  one  of  Meroe,  whence  his  statue 
has  disappeared,  he  is  represented  as  sitting  alone  on  a  throne, 
holding  the  symbols  of  life  and  power,  and  wearing  a  crown 
with  a  peculiar  ornament  of  two  feathers,  and  a  band  falling 
behind  and  hanging  down  to  his  feet.  This  is  a  very  un- 
Egyptian  appearance  of  a  deity. 

And  what  was  said  of  the  extent  of  his  worship  does  not  yet 
realize  all  the  idea  the  ancients  had  of  it.  According  to  many, 
he  was  not  only  the  Supreme  God  of  Africa,  but  if  we  listen  to 
the  certainly  learned  poet  Lucan  (Pharsal,  Lib.  ix.  v.  517,  518) : 

"  Quamvis  jEthiopum  populis  Arabumque  beads,  * 

Gentibus  atque  Indis  unus  sit  Jupiter  Ammon." 

Lucan  seems  thus  to  have  entertained  the  thought  that  Amun 
of  Africa,  and  Brahma  of  Hindostan,  were  the  same  Supreme 
God  ;  and  the  word  units  he  employs  is  remarkable,  as,  in  his 
time,  Egypt  had  more  gods  than  any  other  country  on  earth. 
Yet  he  thus  acknowledges  that  there  was  one  infinitely  superior 
to  all  the  others.  Hence,  even  in  our  time,  all  admit  that  in 


232  GENTILISM. 

the  Egyptian  mythology  "Amun  held  the  highest  place."  But 
Egyptologists  recognize,  likewise,  that  his  character  was  unde- 
fined, as  was  also  that  of  Brahma ;  and  thus  inferior  deities 
were  identified  with  each  of  the  two  in  both  countries,  as  if 
•no  being  could  share  in  the  divine  honors  unless  he  received 
something  from  the  Head  one,  which  was  thus  the  original 
fountain  of  divinity.  This  has  not  hitherto  been  sufficiently 
considered. 

We  ought  not,  therefore,  to  be  surprised  that  the  very  word 
Amun  means  "  hidden,"  "  invisible,"  "  unapproachable  to  our 
understanding."  And  there  is  a  curious  passage  on  the  subject 
in  Plutarch  (De  Iside  et  Osiride),  which  makes  allusion  to  an 
Egyptian  custom  quite  significant  to  our  purpose  : 

"  Manetho  the  Sebennite  "  (the  author  of  the  celebrated  list 
of  kings),  "  thinks  that  the  word  Amun  means  '  hidden,'  and 
also  '  the  act  of  concealing  oneself '  (upvifiiv) ;  and  Hecatseus 
of  Abdera  says  that  the  Egyptians  use  that  expression  when 
they  call  each  other "  (probably  in  the  dark) ;  "  for  the  word 
itself  indicates  invocation.  And  as  they  think  that  the  First 
God  is  the  same  with  the  Universe,  as  being  obscure  and  con- 
cealed, they  say  they  call  on  Amun  and  pray  to  Him  that  He 
may.  unveil  His  face  and  allow  them  to  see  Him." 

In  the  time  of  Hecatseus  of  Abdera,  five  hundred  years  be- 
fore Christ,  it  was  certainly  true  that  the  Egyptians  thought 
"  that  the  First  God  was  the  same  with  the  Universe."  They 
even  thought  worse  than  this,  as  we  shall  see.  But  is  this  a 
reason  for  concluding  that  it  had  always  been  so  ?  The  very 
words  of  our  author  show  the  contrary.  The  "  Universe  "  is 
not  certainly  a  "  hidden  "  being.  There  is  no  need  of  calling 
on  it  to  unveil  its  face.  It  was  precisely  on  account  of  the 
true  God  being  invisible,  that  in  the  course  of  ages  corruption 
of  belief  had  crept  in,  and  substituted  for  an  "  invisible  "  God 
a  visible  Universe ;  for  Monotheism  the  ancient  Pantheism  of 
Orpheus.  The  phrase,  therefore,  on  which  we  comment, 


CEXTEAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  233 

renders  the  passage  of  Hecataeus,  as  quoted  by  Plutarch,  unin- 
telligible ;  and  the  only  way  to  clear  it  up  is  to  suppress  the 
parenthesis  (the  First  God  is  the  same  with  the  Universe),  and 
to  say,  merely :  "  The  Egyptians  use  that  expression — Amun — 
when  they  call  each  other  in  the  dark ;  for  the  word  itself  in- 
dicates invocation  ;  and  as  they  think  that  the  First  God  is  in 
His  nature  obscure  and  concealed,  they  say  they  call  on  Amun 
and  pray  to  Him,  that  He  may  unveil  His  face  and  allow  them 
to  see  Him." 

The  text  being  now  intelligible,  throws  a  flood  of  light  on 
the  divine  nature  of  Amun ;  and  we  cannot  but  remember  the 
beautiful  passages  of  the  Yedic  upanishads  where  we  have  read 
that  "  God  sees  everything  and  is  not  seen ;  that  He  hears  all 
and  is  not  heard,  etc.,"  and  praying  "  that  we  may  know  Him 
and  love  Him,  by  seeing  Him  face  to  face." 

But  modern  Egyptologists  object  that  all  those  passages  of 
old  classic  writers  are  unreliable.  Difficulties  have  been  raised 
about  them  without  end  ;  and  this  is  true.  Science,  they  say, 
is  now  positivist,  and  cannot  be  satisfied  with  conjectures; 
with  etymologies,  conclusions  drawn  from  some  stray  passage 
of  an  old  author,  etc.  Hence  for  Egypt,  particularly,  all  the 
authority  of  ancient  lore  ought  to  be  discarded ;  and,  as  the 
monuments  say  very  little  on  the  primitive  religion  of  Egypt, 
we  had  better  acknowledge  our  ignorance,  and  merely  state* 
what  appears  on  the  monuments  under  our  very  eyes — that 
Anubis  had  the  head  of  a  dog,  Thoth  that  of  a  hawk  or  ibis, 
Isis  that  of  a  cow,  Amun,  finally,  the  great  Amun,  that  of  a 
ram. 

To  this  we  demur  most  emphatically.  Our  knowledge  of 
the  Egyptian  religion  is  not  derived  only  from  stray  bits  of  old 
manuscripts,  from  conjectural  etymologies,  from  very  doubtful 
conclusions,  etc.,  etc.  But,  as  our  readers  have  seen,  there  has 
been  in  Grecian  antiquity  a  positive  public  opinion  on  the  sub- 
ject, asserting  that  the  first  Egyptians  worshipped  one  Supreme 


234  GENTILISM. 

God.  This  has  been  corroborated  by  the  general  belief  of  the 
oldest  Fathers  of  the  Church,  of  those  most  likely  to  know  the 
truth.  The  researches  of  more  modern  authors  have,  un- 
doubtedly, taken  the  same  direction  ;  and  many  Egyptologists 
of  our  age  acknowledge  the  force  of  all  those  sources  of  infor- 
mation, and  find  that  the  monuments  often  hold  the  same  lan- 
guage. 

For,  although,  owing  to  the  very  few  inscriptions  and  papyri 
relating  to  the  primitive  religion  of  Egypt,  which  have  been 
so  far  discovered  and  deciphered,  our  demonstration  derived 
from  these  cannot  be  but  partial  and  fragmentary ;  yet 
the  few  words  of  real  antiquity  on  the  oldest  monuments 
which  have  reached  us,  are  emphatic,  and  of  a  most  striking 
character. 

These  have  been  chiefly  found  in  sepulchres  or  on  funereal 
columns,  where  the  true  meaning  of  the  inner  religious  feeling 
of  the  old  Egyptians  would  be  more  surely  met  with  than  even 
in  temples  erected  designedly  for  idolatrous  purposes.  Mr. 
Yiscount  E.  de  Rouge  has  given  a  strict  translation  of  several 
of  them,  which,  after  due  discussion,  has  been  only  strength- 
ened by  the  labors  of  other  French,  German,  and  English 
Egyptologists,  so  as  to  be  considered  now  as  proof  against  con- 
tradiction. 

We  quote  the  very  words  of  the  noble  author.  They  are 
taken  from  a  "  Conference  sur  la  Religion  des  Anciens  Egyp- 
tiens,"  published  at  Paris  in  1869. 

"  Nobody,"  he  says,  "  has  been  able  to  directly  dissent  from 
our  interpretation  of  the  chief  texts  on  which  we  think  we  can 
establish  the  belief  of  ancient  Egypt,  with  respect  to  God,  the 
world,  and  man. 

"  I  have  said  on  God,  not  on  the  gods.  The  first  character 
of  the  old  Egyptian  religion  is  the  Unity  of  God,  expressed 
most  energetically  :  God  one,  sole,  unique  /  no  others  with  Him 
• — He  is  the  only  Being  living  in  truth — Thou  art  one;  and 


CENTRAL    ASIA   AND    AFRICA.  235 

millions  of  beings  issue  from  Thee — He  has  made  everything, 
and  alon-e  He  has  not  been  made. 

"  Second  character :  God  exists  by  Himself ;  He  is  the  only 
Being  who  has  not  been  generated.  The  old  Egyptians  con- 
ceived God  as  the  active  cause,  the  perpetual  source  of  His  own 
existence  ;  He  engenders  Himself  perpetually.  God  A  SE. 
Hence,  the  idea  of  God  under  two  aspects :  the  Father  and  the 
Son.  In  many  hymns  is  found  the  notion  of  a  double  being  en- 
gendering himself  j  the  SOUL  in  twins,  as  the  funereal  ritual 
speaks  .  .  . ." 

Mr.  de  Kouge,  however,  in  these  last  texts  could  have  easily 
seen  the  first  step  to  pantheism,  and  a  visible  copy  of  the  later 
Yedic  Hindooism.  It  is  creation  by  emanation. 

Yet,  "  on  the  subject  of  creation,"  several  texts  quoted  by 
the  same  writer,  express  certainly  the  true  doctrine.  God  has 
made  the  Heavens  ; — He  has  created  the  earth  • — He  has  made 
aU  that  exists  ;—He  is  the  master  of  beings  and  of  non-beings. 
"  These  texts,"  he  adds,  "  date  from  fifteen  hundred  years  at 
least  before  Moses.  According  to  the  same  hymns,  God  has 
regulated  the  order  of  nature  ;  the  sovereign  rights  of  the 
Creator  cannot  be  more  clearly  asserted."  But  he  confesses 
that,  "  as  to  the  origin  of  matter  the  old  Egyptians  seem  to  have 
believed  that  the  world  was  eternally  engendered  ....  they 
thus  fall  into  the  doctrine  of  direct  emanation  ;  hence  the 
deification  of  the  Nile,  of  animals,  of  all  that  exist."  Mr.  de 
llougd  might  have  seen  that  pantheism  was  contained  in  some 
of  the  texts  in  which  he  saw  only  the  unity  and  immensity  of 
God.  Several  striking  passages,  however,  which  we  have 
translated  from  him  in  the  previous  paragraphs,  show  no  sign 
of  any  error  even  in  inception,  and  confirm  powerfully  what 
was  quoted  previously  from  Greek  authors,  and  from  what  re 
mains  to  us  of  the  Hermetic  books. 

Mr.  Mariette,  in  his  "  JSTotice  sur  les  Monuments  du  Musee  de 
Boulaq,"  inlicates  several  striking  similarities  between  the 


236  GE1STTILISM. 

Egyptian  cosmogony  and  the  Hebrew  traditions  contained  in 
Genesis.  He  says :  "  In  the  Egyptian  cosmogony,  Knouphis 
is  the  first  demiurgos  /  his  name  is  analogous  to  the  Hebrew 
nouf,  breathing,  spirit.  On  a  monument  at  Philoe,  he  is 
called :  He  who  has  made  all  that  is,  the  creator  of  beings  /  the 
first  existing  being,  the  father  of  fathers,  the  mother  of  mothers. 
On  several  papyri  he  is  represented  sailing  on  the  primeval 
ocean.  The  Egyptian  spirit  thus  carried  on  the  waters,  calls  to 
mind  the  passage  of  Genesis  :  '  And  the  Spirit  of  God  was  borne 
on  the  waters.' ':  Several  other  striking  analogies  are  quoted 
by  the  same  learned  author,  the  most  celebrated  of  recent  or 
of  any  other  discoverers. 

There  is  no  need  of  mentioning  the  belief  of  the  Egyptians 
in  the  immortality  of  the  soul.  In  the  creed  of  no  ancient 
nation  was  it  more  clearly  defined.  But,  since  the  discovery 
of  the  "  Funereal  Ritual,"  on  which  Mr.  de  Rouge  has  pub- 
lished most  important  "  Etudes,"  many  details  hitherto  un- 
known have  rendered  this  truth  more  definitely  settled.  This 
discovery  has  increased  the  universal  regret  that  all  the  Her- 
metic books,  of  which  this  was  probably  a  small  fragment,  are 
in  all  appearance  lost  for  ever. 

"We  will  quote  of  it  only  the  defence  of  the  soul  before  the 
judgment  seat  of  Osiris,  and  his  terrible  forty-two  assessors. 
We  quote  from  the  "  Ancient  History  of  the  East "  :  "I  have 
not  blasphemed,"  says  the  deceased ;  "  I  have  not  smitten  men 
privily ;  I  have  not  treated  any  person  with  cruelty  ;  I  have  not 
stirred  up  trouble  ;  I  have  not  been  idle ;  I  have  not  been  in- 
toxicated ;  I  have  not  made  unjust  commandments ;  I  have 
showed  no  improper  curiosity  ;  I  have  not  allowed  my  mouth 
to  tell  secrets ;  I  have  not  wounded  any  one ;  I  have  not  put 
any  one  in  fear ;  I  have  not  slandered  any  one ;  I  have  not  let 
envy  gnaw  my  heart ;  I  have  spoken  evil  neither  of  the  king 
nor  of  my  father;  I  have  not  falsely  accused  any  one;  I  have 
not  withheld  milk  from  the  mouths  of  sucklings ;  I  have  not 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  237 

practised  any  shameful  crime ;  I  have  not  calumniated  a  slave 
to  his  master."  This  is,  indeed,  the  judgment  after  death — 
post  hoc  autem  judidum. 

And,  after  this  "  negative  confession,"  as  Champollion  called 
it,  the  deceased  man  speaks  of  the  positive  good  he  has  done  in 
his  lifetime :  "  I  have  made  to  the  gods  the  offerings  that  were 
their  due ;  I  have  given  food  to  the  hungry,  drink  to  the  thirsty, 
and  clothes  to  the  naked,"  etc. 

Such  a  high  morality  supposed  certainly  a  pure  dogmatic 
doctriire  ;  for  corruption  of  belief  brings  on  necessarily  corrup- 
tion of  manners ;  and  "  without  doubt,"  F.  Lenormant  says, 
"  it  was  this  clear  insight  into  truth,  this  tenderness  of  con- 
science, which  obtained  for  the  Egyptians  this  reputation  of 
wisdom,  echoed  even  by  Holy  Scripture "  (1  Kings  iv.  30 ; 
Acts  vii.  27). 

There  is  no  doubt,  certainly,  that  the  clear  assertion  of  a  pure 
monotheism  and  of  an  undefiled  morality,  was  not  considered 
in  Egypt,  at  least  during  the  ages  well  known  to  us,  as  fit  to 
be  published  everywhere  and  communicated  to  every  one. 
Everybody  knows  that  this  was  reserved  only  for  the  educated 
and  higher  classes  of  society.  It  was  the  esoteric  doctrine  re- 
vealed to  a  comparative  few.  But  it  had  not  probably  been  so 
at  the  very  beginning  ;  we  cannot  know  when  the  unnatural 
distinction  began.  We  can  scarcely  be  sure  for  how  long  it 
was  preserved.  It  is  certain  that,  in  the  age  of  Herodotus  and 
Plato,  the  esoteric  doctrine  was  yet  taught  in  the  interior  of 
the  temples  ;  and  the  father  of  history,  who  has  preserved  for 
us  the  knowledge  of  many  ridiculous  fables,  has  likewise  posi- 
tively asserted  that  "the  Egyptians  of  Thebes  recognized  one 
only  God,  who  had  had  no  beginning,  and  would  have  no  end." 
Thus  at  least  F.  Lenormant  asserts  (Ancient  History  of  the 
East,  Tom.  i.,  p.  318). 

Sir  George  Rawlinson  is  so  much  convinced  of  this,  that  he 
thinks  it  is  from  the  primitive  belief  of  Egypt  that  most  Greek 


238  GENTILISM. 

philosophers  of  the  ancient  school  admitted  real  Unity  in  Di- 
vine Nature,  although  their  mythology  soon  divided  it  into 
several  manifestations,  from  which  polytheism  sprung.  As  the 
words  of  so  learned  a  man  carry  a  great  weight  with  them,  we 
quote  from  his  second  volume  of  Herodotus  (Appleton's  edi- 
tion), p.  249  : 

"  The  philosophical  view  taken  by  the  Greeks  of  the  nature 
of  the  Deity  was  different  from  their  mythological  system.  .  .  . 
Directly  they  began  to  adopt  the  inquiry-  into  the  nature  of 
the  Deity ;  they  admitted  that  He  must  be  One  Supreme  ;  and 
He  received  whatever  name  appeared  to  convey  the  clearest 
notion  of  the  First  Principle.  How  far  any  of  their  notions, 
or  at  least  the  inquiry  that  led  to  them,  may  be  traced  to  an 
acquaintance  with  Egyptian  speculation,  it  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine ;  Thales  and  many  more  philosophers  studied  in  Egypt, 
and  must  have  begun,  or  have  sought  to  promote,  their  inquiry 
during  their  visit  to  the  learned  people  of  that  age ;  and  in 
justice  to  them,  we  must  admit  that  they  went  to  study  there 
for  some  purpose.  At  all  events,  their  early  thoughts  could 
not  but  have  been  greatly  influenced  by  an  intercourse  with 
Egypt,  though  many  a 'succeeding  philosopher  suggested  some 
new  view  of  the  First  Cause  ;  speculation  taking  a  varied  range, 
and  often  returning  under  different  names  to  a  similar  conclu- 
sion." 

We  shall,  however,  later  on,  show  that  an  acquaintance  with 
the  primitive  doctrine  of  Egypt  was  not  the  only,  nor  perhaps 
the  greatest,  cause  of  the  monotheistic  views  of  many  Hellenist 
Sages.  But  the  reflections  of  the  learned  editor  of  "  Herodotus," 
are  certainly  true,  and  remarkably  appropriate  to  our  subject. 

In  conclusion,  we  cannot  do  better  than  quote  a  somewhat 
long  but  very  important  passage  of  Mr.  Mariette  in  his  "  No- 
tice du  Musee  de  Boulaq,"  p.  15  and  sq.,  in  which  we  shall 
find  a  natural  transition  to  the  period  of  decline  in  truth  and 
introduction  of  error  in  Egypt : 


CENTKAL    ASIA    AND    AFKICA.  239 

"  The  almost  infinite  variety  of  types  presented  by  the 
Egyptian  pantheon  is  a  fact  known  to  everybody.  It  would 
be  wrong,  however,  to  draw  from  this  the  conclusion  that  the 
Egyptian  religion  was  never  anything  but  a  tissue  of  gross  and 

ridiculous  fables Had  its  only  basis  been  composed  of 

the  strange  superstitions  practised  in  that  country,  it  could  not 
have  run  the  splendid  career  of  its  history.  .  .  .  Such  a  shame- 
less religion  would  have  contained  a  germ  of  death,  rather  than 
the  active  principles  of  life  which  gave  such  a  high  position  in 
the  world's  history  to  the  old  Egyptian  civilization.  Recent 
disco  veri2s  in  the  art  of  reading  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  have 
confirmed  these  views. 

"At  the  head  of  the  Egyptian  pantheon  appears  a  God,  one, 
immortal,  uncreated,  invisible,  and  hidden  in  the  unapproach- 
able depths  of  His  essence.  He  is  the  creator  of  heaven  and 
earth ;  He  has  made  everything  that  exists,  and  nothing  has 
been  made  without  Him.  But  He  is  the  God  reserved  only  to 
the  initiated. 

"  Egypt,  however,  did  not  know  how,  or  did  not  wish,  to 
stop  at  so  immense  a  height.  She  came  down  to  consider  the 
world,  its  formation,  the  principles  by  which  it  is  governed, 
man  and  his  destiny  on  earth,  as  an  immense  drama."  ("We 
shall  speak  later  on  of  the  fable  of  Osiris.)  "  The  Being  of 
beings  is  the  only  actor  in  it ;  everything  comes  from  Him, 
and  must  return  to  Him.  He  is  served,  it  is  true,  by  agents  ; 
but  these  are  His  own  personified  attributes,  and  these  become 
finally  so  many  gods  under  visible  forms,  inferior  gods,  limited 
in  their  actions,  although  participating  in  all  His  essential  char- 
acteristics  

"  Behind  those  altars  loaded  with  the  images  of  deities, 
apparently  so  strange,  Egypt,  therefore,  concealed  serious  dog- 
mas. And  thus  it  can  be  easily  understood  that  if  the  Egyp- 
tian religion  has  lasted  so  long  a  time,  it  was  because  it  rested, 
originally  on  a  theology  not  altogether  unworthy  of  the  name." 
17 


240  GENTILISM. 


VI. 


These  revelations  of  the  great  explorer  of  Egyptian  antiquities 
bring  us  naturally  to  consider  the  first  downward  steps  towards 
error  in  Egypt,  as  we  have  already  done  as  regards  Hindostan. 
And  the  result  is  again  a  rapid  fall  to  the  pantheism  described 
by  the  Book  of  Wisdom.  A  text  quoted  previously  in  support 
of  Egyptian  monotheism,  under  a  mistake,  certainly,  by  Mr.  de 
Rouge,  expresses  the  doctrine  clearly  but  crudely :  "  The  idea 
of  God  is  offered  under  two  aspects :  the  father  and  the  son  ; 
he  is  a  double  being  engendering  himself ;  the  soul  in  twins." 
In  this  passage,  and  many  others  of  the  kind,  the  father  is 
God  and  the  son  is  the  World.  The  world,  as  expressed  by 
Plato  in  his  "  Timosus,"  is  "  the  only-begotten  Son  of  God." 
Both,  therefore,  are  identified,  and  the  most  rigid  pantheism  is 
at  once  introduced  as  a  religious  dogma. 

To  give  it  a  stronger  hold  on  the  Egyptian  mind,  both  the 
texts  on  papyri  and  on  monuments  represent,  in  many  different 
forms,  the  "  principal  god  of  the  temples  "  engendering  him- 
self in  the  bosom  of  his  mother.  The  god  becomes,  conse- 
quently, his  own  father  and  his  own  son,  the  mother  contrib- 
uting nothing  in  that  system,  but  being  altogether  passive,  as 
Diodorus  asserts  (Lib.  I.,  80).  Thus  there  is  the  most  complete 
identity  between  God  and  Ihe  world ;  and  the  Egyptian  will 
be  able,  henceforth,  to  worship  the  sun,  and  the  moon,  and 
the  winds,  and  the  Xile,  and  the  trees  as  real  gods.  The  Book 
of  Wisdom  has,  in  fact,  related  only  what  really  took  place. 
Mr.  Mariette  says,  with  justice,  that  this  "  double  god  "  is  "  the 
one  whose  image  the  Egyptians  saw  everywhere  repeated  on 
the  walls  of  sacred  edifices." 

It  is  not  probable,  nay,  it  does  not  seem  possible,  that  pan- 
theistic error  should  have  reached  at  once  such  an  extreme 
limit.  It  came  on  gradually,  we  may  well  suppose.  And  as  in 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  241 

the  Vedic  upanishads  sublime  trutlis  were  often  nobly  ex- 
pressed, with  some  incidental  phrases  introducing  the  fatal 
formulas,  the  sams  must  have  taken  place  in  Egypt. 

St.  Justin  Martyr,  in  his  "  Cohortatio  ad  Graecos,"  says  of 
some  author,  whoss  name  now  escapes  us :  "  Ammon  Deum 
prorsus  occultum  nominat ;  Hermes  vero  dare  et  manifeste 
dicit :  Deum  intelligentia  comprekendere,  difficile  est  /  eloqui 
a/ntem  impossibile" 

There  is  nothing  here  to  which  the  strictest  orthodoxy  can 
object.  Any  Christian  philosopher  of  our  days  will  say,  like- 
wise, that  God  is  truly  "  hidden "  from  ns ;  and  that  if  it  is 
hard  for  our  intellect  to  understand  Him,  it  is  really  impos- 
sible for  our  tongue  to  express  His  nature. 

But  lamblichus,  in  his  book,  "  De  Mysteriis  Egyptiorum," 
stating  briefly  the  answer  of  Anebon  to  Porphyry,  no  longer 
now  in  existence,  gives  a  definition  of  God  which  any  Catholic 
theologian  could  adopt,  if  it  were  not  marred  by  some  dubious 
expressions.  God  is  declared  to  be  "  totius  natures  et  genera- 
tionis  potestatumque  elementarium,  Causa.  .  .  .  immaterialis, 
incorporeus,  ingenitus,  indivisus,  totus  a  seipso,  et  in  seipso 
dbsconditus,  ....  etc?'  It  seems  as  if  we  were  reading  some 
of  the  scholastic  theologians.  But  doubt  begins  to  be  awakened 
when  we  read  :  "  Universal,  in  se  complectitur"  and  ''  sequeipse 
omnibus  mundi  partibus  communicat."  We  cannot  forbear 
pointing  out  this  close  resemblance  of  ancient  Egyptian  lore 
with  the  Hindoo  Yedas.  It  is  again  the  universal  soul  perme- 
ating creation. 

The  error  is  yet  more  clearly  expressed  in  a  passage  taken 
from  the  dialogue  "Asclepius" — in  Greek,  6  reXeiog  Aoyo^ — 
misunderstood  by  Lactantius  and  St.  Augustine.  We  quote 
from  the  late  Edinburgh  translation  of  the  Ante-lSTicene 
Fathers  :  "  Hermes,  in  the  book  which  is  entitled  The  Perfect 
Word,  made  use  of  these  words :  '  The  Lord  and  Creator  of 
all  things  we  have  thought  right  to  call  God,  since  he  made 


242  GEXTILISM. 

the  Second  God  visible  and  sensible Since,  therefore, 

He  made  Him  first,  and  alone,  and  one  only,  He  appeared  to 
Him  beautiful,  and  most  full  of  all  good  things ;  and  He  hal- 
lowed Him,  and  altogether  loved  Him  as  His  own  Son.'  " 
Lactantius  and  St.  Augustine  understood  this  of  the  Logos, 
Son  of  God  ;  but  Hermes  meant  to  speak  of  the  created  World, 
and  thus  made  the  exterior  creation  a  second  and  visible  God, 
the  first  after  the  Supreme  One.  It  is  evidently  that  double 
god  engendering  himself,  whom  Mr.  Mariette  declares  is  repre- 
sented everywhere  on  the  monuments. 

Likewise  in  one  of  the  "  Christian  "  Hermetic  books — the 
Poemander — it  is  first  stated  that  "  the  First  God  is  the  eternal 
architect  of  all  things,  made  by  no  one  ;"  but  directly  after, 
the  writer  adds  :  "  The  Second  God  is  the  one  which  has  been 
made  in  the  image  of  the  First,  contained  in  It,  loved,  nour- 
ished, and  rendered  immortal  by  its  Father."  The  visible 
world,  therefore,  is  declared  to  be  the  Son  of  God,  immortal 
likewise,  and  true  God.  This  was  also  a  Hindoo  doctrine, 
which  marks  distinctly  the  passage  from  monotheism  to  pan- 
theism. 

It  seems  that  in  Egypt  this  occurred  sooner  than  in  Hin- 
dostan,  as  the  Egyptians  appear  to  have  been  more  prone  to 
idolatry  than  the  Hindoos.  But  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable 
that  the  same  pro3ess  of  error  shows  itself  in  both  countries 
at  a  very  remote  age  ;  for  this  alteration  of  the  primitive  doc- 
trine must  have  happened  before  any  of  the  monuments  still 
existing  in  Hindostan  or  Egypt  were  built.  Certainly,  at  the 
time  this  was  first  written,  nothing  of  the  absurd  mythology 
sculptured  at  length  on  the  oldest  edifices,  had  been  yet  imag- 
ined to  please  the  vulgar. 

The  coincidences  between  the  Hindoo  and  Egyptian  relig- 
ions are  so  remarkable,  that  we  wonder  indeed  they  have  not 
yet  been  fully  pointed  out.  It  is  true  the  most  important  dis- 
coveries in  Yedic  lore  date  only  from  a  few  years  ago ;  and 


CENTRAL   ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  243 

Egyptology  progressing  apart,  no  extensive  comparison  of  both 
could  yet  have  taken  place.  A  most  interesting  volume,  we 
think,  couM  be  written  on  the  subject ;  and  as  the  Hindoo  dis- 
coveries are  admitted  to  be  positive,  we  may  say  clear  and  final, 
the  light  thrown  thereby  on  what  is  yet  obscure  in  Egypt 
would,  in  our  opinion,  take  away  from  modern  writers  the  pre- 
text that,  for  the  country  of  the  Pharaohs  the  old  classics  are 
"  unreliable."  Thus,  who  will  not  wonder  that  in  the  "  Poem- 
ander  "  God  is  twice  declared  appevod^vg —  hermaphrodite. 
Cudworth,  who  lived  in  an  age  very  little  acquainted  yet  with 
Indian  theology,  says  on  the  subject :  "  Hoc,  ni  fallor,  Jigyp- 
tium  est."  He  might  as  well  have  said :  "  This  is  purely 
Yedic,"  and  we  know  that  error  penetrated  first  the  mind  of 
the  Brahmins  when  they  imagined  Brahma  (male).  The  same, 
namely,  the  hermaphroditism  of  Amun,  is  asserted  also  in  the 
dialogue,  "  Asclepius,"  one  of  the  iXeoplatomst  Hermetic 
books. 

In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  chapters  of  the  Poemander,  the 
doctrine  of  transmigration  first  appears,  and  the  destruction 
and  renovation  of  the  world  is  likewise  broached.  We  know 
that  these  doctrines,  specially  the  first,  received  in  Egypt  great 
later  developments.  And  thus  this  country  walked  in  the  foot- 
steps of  India ;  where,  nevertheless,  the  superior  imagination 
and  poetical  feeling  of  the  nation  made  of  those  two  extraor- 
dinary beliefs,  such  a  fantastic  system  of  dreams  that  the  like 
never  could  happen  in  any  other  country  on  earth ;  so  that 
Egypt  could  never  keep  pace  with  it. 

Pantheism  in  Hindostan  originated  chiefly  first  from  the 
doctrine  of  "  universal  soul,"  or  God  animating  the  world  ;  and, 
secondly,  from  the  ritual  and  "  Sacrificial  rites  ;"  and  the  pro- 
cess is  rendered  now  manifest  by  all  the  recent  researches 
which  have  brought  to  light  so  many  texts  descriptive  of  it. 
The  Egyptian  ritual  is  lost ;  yet  we  possess  ancient  texts,  which 
show  clearly  that  the  passage  to  pantheism  must  have  hap- 


244  GENTILISM. 

pened  precisely  in  the  same  manner.  ~We  shall  speak  again 
later  on  of  the  "  Book  of  Funereal  Rites,"  lately  discovered. 

A  passage  of  the  book  of  Hermes  (rapt  rd  yev/xd),  preserved 
in  the  Chronicle  of  Eusebius,  and  referred  to  by  Lactantius 
(Divin.  Inst.,  L.  ii.,  C.  15),  says  clearly  :  "  Nonne  audivisti 
omnes  animos  ab  uno  hujus  Universitatis  animo  profectos 
esse  ?" — "  Did  you  not  hear  that  all  souls  proceed  from  the  soul 
of  this  Universe  ?" 

Many,  it  is  true,  object  yet  to  those  texts  of  books  published 
either  by  ISTeoplatonist  philosophers,  or  by  Christians,  under  the 
name  of  Hermes,  as  expressing  merely  the  doctrines  of  the 
translators  and  publishers.  The  reader  will  remember  what 
was  stated  previously  on  the  subject.  It  is  certain  that  authors 
such  as  St.  Cyprian,  Lactantius,  St.  Augustine,  St.  Cyril  of 
Alexandria,  and  many  Christian  writers  of  the  time,  as  on  the 
other  side,  Porphyry,  lamblichus,  Proclus,  etc.,  admitted  their 
genuineness,  and  no  one  at  the  time  rejected  them  as  unworthy 
of  credit.  All  that  was  said  in  opposition  was  confined  to  this 
observation :  "  They  were  not  the  very  text  of  Hermes ;"  but 
all  agreed  that  they  expressed  well  the  sentiments  of  Hermes, 
tppaLKag  66ga<;  ;  it  is  all  we  claim  ;  but  every  one  will  admit 
now  that  the  "  sentiment  "  expressed  above  is  altogether  Hin- 
doo, and  reflects  perfectly  the  doctrine  developed  with  such  a 
superabundance  of  details  in  all  the  commentaries  of  the  Yedas, 
after  the  East  had  passed  from  the  pure  original  monotheism 
to  the  pantheism  which  followed. 

And  the  following  text  "  on  creation"  is  so  completely 
Brahm'nic,  that  we  wonder  it  has  hitherto  escaped  observation. 
It  is  taken  from  the  dialogue,  "  Asclepius  :"  "Hie  ergo  qui  solus 
est  omnia,  utriusque  sexus  fecunditate  plenissimus,  semper 
voluntatis  suaz  prcegnans,  parit  semper  quid  quid  voluerit  pro- 
c'/'eare."  We  do  not  think  thai  any  Neoplatonist  philosopher 
would  ever  have  spoken  with  this  crudity,  although  their  doc- 
trine may,  in  the  end,  have  come  to  this.  The  very  words 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  245 

indicate  something  Egyptian,  as  Cudworth  would  say ;  some- 
thing Hindoo,  as  we  would  express  ourselves.  We  are  fully 
persuaded  that  it  came  in  truth  from  the  original  Hermetic 
books;  and  in  our  conviction,  if  those  old  productions  of 
"  Thoth  "  had  been  preserved,  we  should  have  in  them  a  true 
counterpart  of  the  Atharvan-Yeda. 

Was  India,  then,  the  source  of  the  religion,  art,  and  civiliza- 
tion of  Egypt  or  the  reverse  ? 

In  both  countries  strict  castes  existed,  and,  originally,  the 
same  four  in  each  :  priests,  warriors,  merchants,  artisans.  The 
priest  caste  in  Africa  bore  certainly  a  great  resemblance  to  the 
Brahminical  caste  in  Hindostan.  Both  had  a  great  power  over 
the  kings,  yet  did  not  take  an  avowed  part  in  the  government 
of  the  country.  Both  had  to  study  the  sacred  books  :  in  India 
the  Yedas  ;  in  Egypt  the  Hermetic  writings.  The  every-day 
occupations  of  each  were  almost  the  same,  as  well  as  the  relig- 
ious ceremonies  at  which  they  presided — the  processions,  the 
sacrifices,  the  daily  ablutions,  the  ritual,  in  fact,  with  all  its 
numerous  and  perplexing  details.  The  temples  and  other  edi- 
fices devoted  to  religion  had  so  many  traits  in  common  that 
when,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  some  Sepoy  regiments 
were  sent  to  Egypt  by  the  British  Government  against  the 
French,  the  Hindoo  Sepoys  fell  down  prostrate,  and  worship- 
ped their  gods  in  the  colossal  statues  they  saw  -at  Thebes. 

The  military  caste  of  Egypt  was  almost  the  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  that  of  Hindostan.  Neither  were  remarkable  for  their 
fighting  qualities ;  once  only  did  the  Egyptian  armies  invade 
foreign  countries ;  which  was  under  Sesostris.  And  when  the 
country  itself  was  invaded,  it  nearly  always  succumbed.  Thus 
the  Ethiopians,  the  Hyksos,  the  Persians,  the  Macedonians,  and 
the  Eomans,  subdued  Egypt  successively,  almost  without  any 
resistance.  It  was  the  same  with  India. 

In  the  merchant  caste  we  see  likewise  a  great  similarity. 
The  people  in  both  were  .more  agriculturists  than  traders. 


246  GEKTILISM. 

They  had  no  great  fondness  for  the  sea.  To  trade  abroad,  the 
Egyptians  used,  first,  the  vessels  of  the  Phoenicians,  and  after- 
wards those  of  the  Greeks.  The  Indians  employed  for  the 
same  purpose  the  merchant  fleets  of  Arabia. 

Yet  was  the  character  of  the  Egyptian  people  of  a  very  dif- 
ferent type  from  that  of  the  Hindoos.  There  was  in  the  latter 
an  exuberance  of  fancy,  of  poetry,  of  enthusiasm,  which  were 
quite  wanting  in  the  Egyptians.  The  literature  of  the  latter, 
so  meagre  at  all  times,  exhibits  to  us  in  the  few  fragments  we 
still  possess  a  low,  material,  realistic  feeling  altogether  the  re- 
verse of  the  aesthetic  ardor  of  the  literature  of  India.  When  we 
read  the  explanation  of  myths  communicated  by  the  priests  to 
Herodotus,  whenever  the  honest  Greek  writer  forgets  the 
promise  of  secrecy  he  had  given,  and  makes  his  revelations  in 
epite  of  his  fears  of  offending  "  gods  and  heroes/'  we  wonder 
at  the  triviality,  sometimes  even  the  vulgarity  of  style,  thought, 
and  expression.  We  cannot  imagine  a  Hindoo  Brahmin,  in 
such  circumstances,  exhibiting  such  a  total  want  of  noble  feel- 
ings, or  giving  so  mean  a  conception  of  his  religion  to  a 
foreigner.  Whoever  has  read  anything  of  Sanscrit  literature, 
even  in  the  poorest  translations,  cannot  possibly  admit  the 
smallest  resemblance  between  the  two  peoples,, in  mental  con- 
stitution at  least. 

Yet  an  ingenious  writer,  Mr.  E.  Pococke,  attempts  to  dem- 
onstrate that  Egypt  was  altogether  colonized  by  Hindoos ;  and 
that  the  Egyptians  came,  in  fact,  directly  from  the  country 
about  the  mouths  of  the  Indus.  In  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
his  book,  "  India  in  Greece,"  he  argues  that  Egypt  in  general 
—  in  Greek,  AI-GUP-TIA  —  derives  its  name  from  "  H' AI-GO 
PATI,"  a  term  at  once  revealing  their  original  land,  and  the 
object  of  their  worship.  They  are  settlers  from  the  same  laud 
with  the  "  HORSE  TRIBES,"  most  of  whom  are  Children  of  the 
/Sun,  and  worshippers  of  Crqpati,  a  term  which  at  once  signi- 
fies "  the  Sun,"  "the  Bull,"  and  "  Siva."  Hence  their  desig- 


CEXTKAL    ASIA    A^D    AFEICA.  247 

nation  as  "  Hyas  of  the  Solar  Race,"  or  "  H'ai-Goptai."  These 
"  Horse  Tribes  "  come,  he  says*  from  the  Gulf  of  Gush,  near 
the  mouths  of  the  Indus. 

In  the  same  manner  he  endeavors  to  prove  that  the  Ethio- 
pians are  "  Cushites,"  as  applied  in  Hindostan  to  the  "  Arno- 
PAS,  or  "  Chiefs  of  Oude;"  that  the  Abyssinians  and  Nubians 
came  originally  from  "  ABTJA-SIN,"  or  the  Indus,  and  the  river 
Xubra.  This  is,  indeed,  a  mere  etymological  argument  t) 
which  no  sound  scholar  in  our  days  attach  much  importance. 
But  Mr.  Pococke  groups  around  it  such  an  array  of  facts,  of 
texts,  of  historical,  geographical,  and  ethnographical  details, 
that  he  almost  contrives  to  surround  his  speculations  with  an 
air  of  such  plausibility  as  to  resemble  at  times  demonstration. 

But  unfortunately  for  his  theory,  the  whole  of  it  hangs  on 
Buddhism.  The  book  itself  is  an  apparently  serious  argument 
to  prove  that  not  only  Egypt,  Ethiopia,  and  the  interior  of 
Africa,  but  likewise  Palestine,  Syria,  Greece,  Etruria,  the 
North  of  Europe  even,  at  least  Scandinavia,  were  all  settled 
by  Buddhist  tribes.  His  excess  of  zeal  has  carried  Mr.  E. 
Pococke  too  far.  A  few  years  after  the  publication  of  his  very 
erudite  and  interesting  book,  Mr.  E.  Burnouf  demonstrated 
that  Buddhism  is  of  a  comparatively  recent  origin ;  and,  con- 
sequently, that  Egypt,  of  which  alone  we  now  treat,  had  been 
settled  long  before  Gautama,  the  founder  of  Buddhism,  ap- 
peared. 

Such  a  mass  of  erudition,  however,  as  is  displayed  in  "  India 
in  Greece,"  must  not  be  supposed  to  be  on  the  whole  barren  of 
result.  It  quite  establishes  the  fact  that  Egypt  had  from  the 
beginning  close  and  constant  intercourse  with  Hindostan  ;  that 
any  resemblance  between  the  two  peoples  is  perceptible,  chiefly, 
in  the  most  remote  ages ;  and  that  such  rememblance  displays 
itself  most  conspicuously  in  the  similarity  of  their  public  build- 
ings. "  A  striking  analogy,"  he  writes,  "  will  be  found  to 
exist  between  the  rock  architecture  of  both  countries  ;  the  grot- 


248  GENTILISM. 

toes  of  Salsette,  Elephantina,  and  Ellore,  remind  us  strongly  of 
the  excavations  in  Egypt  and  Nubia,  of  the  royal  tombs  at 
Thebes,  and  the  splendid  monument  rescued  from  the  sand 
and  restored  to  the  light  of  day  by  Belzoni,  at  Ipsambul." 

Lord  Yalentia  was  struck  by  the  identity  of  character  in  the 
monuments  of  both  countries,  although  few  of  them  compara- 
tively were  known  in  his  time.  But  here  the  question  naturally 
presents  itself,  Did  Egypt  receive  its  civilization  from  India, 
or  India  from  Egypt  ?  To  maintain  the  latter,  we  must  sup- 
pose that  in  Ilindostan  civilization  travelled  from  the  South 
Northward,  as  the  Egyptians  could  not  then  reach  India  except 
from  the  South.  And  it  is  demonstrated  that  the  contrary  was 
the  case.  We  have  seen,  in  a  previous  chapter,  that  Brahmin- 
ism  originated  in  the  northwest  of  the  Peninsula,  and  all  the 
late  discoveries  go  to  prove  that  the  Himalaya  mountains,  and 
along  their  range,  probably  Cashmere,  was  the  starting-point 
of  the  intellectual  movement.  "  In  the  heart  of  these  moun- 
tains," says,  again,  Mr.  E.  Pococke  (quoting  Lemp.,  Barker's 
edit.,  "  Meroe,")  "  are  found  the  residences  of  the  earlier  Brah- 
mins, and  the  more  ancient  temples  of  their  gods.  At  the  con- 
fluence of  the  two  arms  of  the  Ganges,  rises  the  holy  city  De- 
vaprajaga,  30°,  8'  lat.,  inhabited  only  by  Brahmins  ;  further  on 
is  seen  the  temple  of  Badri-Nuth,  said  to  be  extremely  rich, 
and  to  possess  as  its  domains  more  than  seven  hundred  flour- 
ishing villages,  placed  in  a  state  of  dependence  on  the  high 
priest  of  the  temple  .... 

u  The  most  ancient  poems  of  India  represent  the  countries 
of  the  Ganges  as  the  cradle  of  those  heroes,  who  afterwards 
carried  their  arms  in  the  southern  regions  as  far  as  Ceylon. 
Everything,  in  a  word,  tends  to  show  most  clearly  that  civiliza- 
tion followed  in  India  a  route  diametrically  opposite  to  the 
one  which  it  pursued  in  Egypt,  where  the  Social  movement 
was  from  the  South  to  the  North." 

Colonel  Todd,  on  the  contrary  (Rajastan,  vol.  i,  p.  250), 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  249 

remarks  that,  "  The  allegory  of  Chrishna's  eagle  pursuing  the 
serpent  (Buddha),  and  recovering  the  books  of  science  and  re- 
ligion with  which  he  had  fled,  is  an  important  historical  fact 
disguised  ....  The  gulf  of  Gush  (at  the  mouth  of  the  Indus), 
the  point  where  the  serpent  attempted  to  escape,  has  been  from 
time  immemorial  to  the  present  day,  the  entrepot  for  the  com- 
merce (of  India)  with  Sofala,  the  Red  Sea,  Egypt,  and  Arabia. 
There  Buddha  Trivicrama,  or  Mercury  (Thoth),  has  been,  and 
yet  is,  invoked  by  the  pirates  of  Dwarica.  Did  Buddha,  or 
Mercury  (Thoth),  come  from  or  escape  to  the  Nile  ?  Is  he  the 
Hermes  of  Egypt,  to  whom  the  four  books  of  science,  the 
Yedas  of  the  Hindoos,  were  sacred  ?  The  representative  of 
Buddha,  at  the  period  of  Chrishna,  was  Nema-Nath ;  he  is  of  a 
b)ack  complexion  (As.  trans.,  v.  ii.,  p.  304),  and  his  statues  ex- 
actly resemble  in  features  the  bust  of  young  Memnon.  His 
symbol  was  the  snake.  I  have  already  observed  that  Chrishna, 
before  his  deification,  worshipped  Buddha ;  and  his  temple  at 
Dwarica  rose  over  the  ancient  shrine  of  the  latter,  which  yet 
stands.  In  an  inscription  from  the  cave  of  Gaya,  their  charac- 
ters are  conjoined,  'Heri,  who  is  Buddha.'  " 

If  these  conjectures  of  Col.  Todd  be  correct,  as  we  believe 
them  to  be,  to  a  certain  extent,  tha  colonization  of  Egypt  took 
place  from  India ;  and  even  it  was  through  the  gulf  of  Cush, 
or  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  River.  It  is  now  generally 
admitted  that  Syria  and  Mesopotamia  were  the  real  channel  of 
immigration.  Yet  this  passage  is  of  extreme  importance ;  and 
shows  that  the  Hindoos,  at  the  time  of  the  writing  of  the  Pu- 
ranas,  were  persuaded  that  the  Yedas  had  been  taken  to  the 
South  by  Mercury  (Thoth).  And  if  the  attempt  at  first  failed, 
according  to  the  poet,  they  must  have  succeeded  later,  since 
the  Hermetic  books  existed  afterwards  in  Egypt.  If  Buddha — a 
much  more  recent  personage — appears  in  the  poem,  the  reason 
is  that  Buddhism  existed  at  the  time  when  the  Puranas  were 
composed,  and  was  in  conflict  with  Brahminism ;  and  the  de- 


250  GENTILISM. 

fender  of  this  last  system  of  religion,  the  poet  who  wrote  the 
history  of  Chrishna  and  Rama,  was  not  absolutely  obliged 
to  write  quite  correctly  of  what  happened  so  long  before  him. 


VII. 


From  the  pantheism  which  is  the  logical  deduction  from  a 
belief  in  the  "  Universal  Soul,"  we  proceed  to  a  short  investiga- 
tion of  the  "  worship  of  elements,"  which  is  the  natural  con- 
sequence of  it,  and  which  the  Book  of  Wisdom  has  told  us  is 
the  first  form  idolatry  took  everywhere  among  men. 

We  shall  be  satisfied,  on  this  subject,  with  a  very  remarkable 
passage  of  Porphyry,  taken  from  his  "  Epistola  ad  Anebonem." 
He  wants  to  know  how  far  Chseremon  was  right,  or  if  he  was 
not  altogether  wrong,  in  attributing  to  the  Egyptians  a  very 
gross  and  material  belief  in  visible  gods,  namely  :  "  The  Planets, 
the  signs  of  the  Zodiac,  the  Stars,  etc."  Chaeremon  insisted  that 
even  the  oldest  writings  on  theology  in  Egypt,  consequently 
the  books  of  Hermes,  did  not  acknowledge  any  other  gods  but 
these ;  and  he  added  :  "  That  those  who  believed  the  Sun  to  be 
the  real  architect  of  the  universe,  corroborated  their  arguments 
by  what  is  said  of  Osiris  and  Isis ;  that  all  the  sacred  fables  re- 
solve themselves  in  the  various  aspects  of  the  stars,  in  their  oc- 
cultations  and  wanderings,  even  in  the  Nile  and  its  overflow- 
ings, finally  in  nothing  but  physical  things,  material  altogether, 
without  any  need  of  a  spiritual  principle  altogether." 

Our  readers  perceive  that  the  arguments  of  atheists  are  not 
recent.  But  it  is  clear  that  this  followed  logically  from  the 
doctrine  of  the  "  Universal  Soul."  Everything  was  divine ; 
and  we  have  only  to  look  on  the  "  visible  god  " — the  world — 
without  caring  for  the  "invisible  one" — Amun.  In  Hindo- 
stan,  also,  as  soon  as  the  "  eternal,  infinite,  self-existent  Brahma," 
falling  asleep,  had  generated  from  himself  another  Brahma, 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  251 

with  a  particular  sex  and  visible  attributes,  the  first  god,  too 
indistinct  and  "undefined"  for  popular  worship,  gradually 
ceased  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  worshipper,  and  all  hom- 
ages and  adorations  were  reserved  for  what  the  senses  could 

O 

perceive. 

Hence  the  elements,  the  "  forces  of  nature,"  to  speak  as  men 
do  in  our  age,  became  the  objects  of  the  exclusive  worship  of 
the  Egyptians  ;  and  the  belief  began  to  spread  among  some  of 
the  Greeks,  and  was  adopted  by  a  few  Christian  ecclesiastical 
writers,  that  the  inhabitants  of  that  country  never  had  any 
other  gods  than  "  the  stars  of  heaven  either  fixed  or  erratic  ;" 
that  the  "  esoteric  doctrines,  even  of  the  priests,  did  not  ac- 
knowledge any  invisible  and  spiritual  Creator,  but  that  every- 
thing ought  to  be  attributed  to  the  visible  sun,  the  centre  of 
the  world."  This  renders  at  least  the  sense  of  Eusebius  in  the 
u  Freparatio  Evangelica "  (L.  iii.,  cap.  4),  and  he  concluded 
from  it :  "  You  know  now  the  mysteries  of  that  divine  wisdom 
which  brought  finally  the  Egyptians  to  worship  wolves,  dogs, 
and  lions." 

Eusebius  was  right  in  asserting  that  the  worship  of  Nature 
was  the  cause  which  gradually  introduced  into  Egypt  animal- 
worship.  But  if  he  pretended  that  the  object  of  adoration  was 
only  the  visible  universe,  without  any  reference  to  a  "  spiritual 
principle,"  he  was  evidently  wrong.  The  error  of  the  Egyp- 
tians consisted  precisely  in  this  :  that  they  imagined  the  "  Uni- 
versal Soul " — Amun — to  be  portioned  out  and  divided,  as  it 
were,  into  as  many  distinct  particles  as  there  were  living  beings, 
and  thus  each  one  of  them  was  animated  by  a  parcel  of  divinity. 
It  was,  therefore,  not  only  a  "  spiritual "  but  a  "  divine  "  being 
they  worshipped  when  they  addressed  their  homages  to  the 
sun,  the  stars,  the  planets,  the  £ule,  etc.  Pantheism,  for  them, 
had  become  the  origin  of  idolatry  by  offering  to  their  adoration 
the  "  works  of  God,"  instead  of  "  God  himself."  But  their 
worship  was  directed,  that  of  the  enlightened  among  them,  at 


252  GENTILISM. 

least,  to  the  "  spiritual  principle "  animating  Nature.  The 
same  was  likewise  clearly  the  case  in  Hindostan ;  as  the  "  Book 
of  Wisdom "  has  it,  "  they  imagined,  either  the  "fire  or  the 
wind,  or  the  swift  air,  or.  the  circles  of  the  stars,  or  the  great 
waters,  or  the  sun  and  moon,  to  be  the  gods  that  rule  the 
world." 

As  the  monuments  of  the  eigthteenth  dynasty  are  those  on 
which  Amun-Ra  first  appears,  it  seems  probable  that  this  was 
the  epoch  of  the  introduction  of  real  idolatry,  as  subsequent  to, 
and  caused  by,  Pantheism.  The  god  is  usually  represented 
under  the  form  of  a  man  with  a  high  head-dress,  on  which  is 
sculptured  the  globe  of  the  sun.  Hence  the  Egyptian  word 
Amun-Ra  was  translated  by  the  Greeks  into  He/Uof,  very  dif- 
ferent from  A\i\i.uv.  The  ram's  horns  which  became  in  time 
the  distinguishing  mark  of  Amun,  do  not  appear  when  the 
god  is  represented  as  the  sun.  The  precise  epoch  when  those 
various  emblems  were  introduced  into  Egyptian  mythology 
cannot  now  be  determined.  If  some  future  Egyptologist,  by 
interpreting  aright  and  in  detail  the  existing  monuments,  could 
state  positively  those  diverse  steps  of  Egyptian  imagination 
and  systematic  polytheism,  the  whole  secret  of  the  progress 
of  error  in  the  land  of  the  Pharaohs  would  be  revealed,  and 
a  true  history  of  superstition  in  that  country  might  be  written. 

We  cannot,  however,  be  much  mistaken  when  we  state,  that 
the  eighteenth  dynasty  was  the  period  when  idolatry  took  a 
sudden  and  highly-developed  form.  It  was  at  the  same  time 
the  epoch  of  the  greatest  material  civilization  of  Egypt ;  and 
we  have  already  had  occasion  to  remark  that  the  same  took 
place  in  Hindostan  and  Greece.  In  Egypt,  nevertheless,  an 
element  is,  or  appears  to  be,  wanting,  which  is  most  pre-emi- 
nent in  the  two  other  countries.  We  hear  in  Thebes  and 
Memphis  of  no  great  poems  to  which  the  origin  of  the  names 
of  the  gods  could  be  ascribed  as  those  of  the  Hellenic  deities 
wei  e.  to  the  poems  of  Homer  and  Hesiod  by  Herodotus  ;  and 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFEICA.  253 

as  the  avatars  of  Vishnu,  ard  the  legends  of  Rama  and  Krish- 
na, in  Hindi tstan,  to  the  great  Indian  epics,  the  Ramayana  and 
Mahabharata.  Had  the  Egyptians  any  poetry  ?  Did  they 
possess  any  epic  poems  ?  Was  music  and  the  other  fine  arts 
cultivated  by  them  ?  This  last  question  may  be  answered 
affirmatively,  as  we  know  their  musical  instruments,  and  we 
have  still  models  of  their  sculpture  and  painting.  It  is  only 
very  lately  that  any  writing  has  been  found  which  can  be  called 
poetry,  such  as  we  understand  the  word  ;  but  certainly  no  ex- 
tensive work  of  the  epic  kind  has  been  not  only  preserved,  but 
even  mentioned  in  all  the  Egyptian  lore  now  in  existence, 
unless  it  be  "  poems  in  prose."  We  may,  however,  state  most 
positively  that  they  must  have  had  such  poems ;  and,  first,  we 
cannot  suppose  music  in  antiquity  except  as  an  accompaniment 
to  versification.  We  know,  moreover,  that  the  Egyptians  had 
songs ;  among  the  priestly  officers  mentioned  by  St.  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  the  "  Singer"  was  the  first,  walking  at  the  head 
of  the  procession  ;  and  his  chief  office  was  to  learn  by  heart  the 
"  hymns  to  the  gods,"  and  sing  them.  Can  we  suppose  a 
"  hymn  "  in  ancient  times  except  in  verse  and  with  rythm  ? 

The  main  question,  however,  is  to  know  if  the  Egyptians 
had  really  poems  of  an  epic  kind,  out  of  which  an  intricate 
mythology  could  grow.  None  certainly  have  been  preserved, 
and  none  are  alluded  to  in  any  ancient  author.  But  we  are 
acquainted  with  the  history  of  several  of  their  gods.  Those  of 
Osiris,  Isis,  Horus,  and  Typhon  are  especially  known  in  all 
their  details,  made  out  of  many  bits  of  information  contained 
here  and  there  in  Greek  and  Latin  works.  These  histories  are 
certainly  fictitious ;  and  we  cannot  admit  fiction  in  ancie-nt 
times  except  under  the  form  of  a  poem.  Novels  were  un- 
known, and  the  subject  was  too  sacred  for  the  Egyptians  to  be 
treated  as  a  mere  novel,  in  the  modern  acceptance  of  the  term. 
We  have  no  dpubt,  consequently,  that  the  history  of  Osiris 
and  Isis  was  first  enunciated  in  a  poem  of  the  form  of  the 


254  GENTILISM. 

Ramayana  among  the  Hindoos.  The  original  work  has  per- 
ished ;  we  have  only  a  few  fragments,  contained  in  more  recent 
authors,  yet  so  that  a  complete  fabulous  history  has  been  recom- 
posed,  and  is  known  now  as  the  myth  of  Osiris. 

We  find,  therefore,  in  Egypt,  at  least  by  indirect  conclu- 
sions, the  phenomenon  so  striking  in  India  and  Greece.  The 
poets  of  Memphis  and  Thebes  originated  a  mythology  best 
known  now  by  the  astonishing  sculptures  which  still  exist, 
chiefly  in  the  ruins  of  Thebes,  Luxor,  Philo3,  Elephantine, 
and  all  over  Nubia  and  Ethiopia.  Their  imagination  created 
those  monsters  which  strike  the  traveller  in  Egypt  as  in  Hin- 
dostan  ;  and  there  is  a  remarkable  fact  in  both  countries,  which 
establishes  a  wonderful  difference  between  them  and  Greece : 
The  gods  are  found  in  groups,  never  singly.  Amun-Ra  is 
always  surrounded  by  his  kindred  deities,  as  Osiris,  and  Phtah, 
and  all  the  others  by  theirs.  Each  temple  represents,  conse- 
quently, a  different  fabulous  history,  which  must  have  origi- 
nated from  a  different  poem ;  not  so  in  Greece,  where  each 
god  or  goddess  alone  enjoys  the  monopoly  of  the  temples  con- 
secrated to  each. 

There  is,  moreover,  another  resemblance  in  this  respect  be- 
tween India  and  Egypt  worthy  of  note.  It  is  that  each  prin- 
cipal god  is  always  accompanied  with  a  goddess,  called,  by  the 
vulgar,  his  wife,  but,  in  reality,  his  "  female  energy,"  as  we 
remarked  in  Hindostan,  in  the  case  of  Siva,  in  particular.  The 
original  hermaphroditism  of  the  Godhead  is  replaced  by  a  dis- 
tinction of  sexes  for  each  deity ;  and  we  already  know  how 
immorality  and  monstrosity  have  spread,  which  sprung  origi- 
nally from  this  strange  fancy  of  primitive  poets  and  artists. 
Thus  Phtah,  or  Vulcan,  at  Memphis,  is  never  seen  alone  ;  but 
the  monstrous  goddesses  Pasht  and  Bast  keep  always  attend- 
ance on  him  ;  Knum,  worshipped  at  Elephantine,  is  in  company 
with  Heka,  or  Anuka ;  Amun-Ra,  or  Helios,  cannot  appear 
without  Mu,  the  "  Mother ;"  Osiris  and  Isis  are  well  known.  But 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  255 

we  have  no  occasion  to  enter  into  the  detail  of  all  the  Egyptian 
mythology.  These  few  instances  will  suffice.  It  is  difficult, 
however,  not  to  see  an  identity  of  origin  in  a  mythological 
idea  of  this  kind  existing  at  the  same  time  both  in  India  and 

Egypt- 

A  very  striking  peculiarity  of  this  last  country,  however,  is 
the  local  character  of  these  gods,  restricted,  except  in  the  caso 
of  a  few,  to  a  comparatively  small  territory  ;  a  local  character 
whence,  probably,  animal- worship  took  a  much  greater  preemi- 
nence in  Egypt  than  in  India.  It  is  well  known  that  except 
the  worship  of  Amun  (sirnpliciter),  and  that  of  Osiris  and  Isis, 
which  was  universal  throughout  the  whole  extent  of  the  coun- 
try, the  other  gods  of  Egyptian  mythology  were  honored  only 
in  particular  cities  or  districts  ;  and  this  took  place  in  groups, 
as  each  individual  chief  deity  had  always  a  number  of  invari- 
able companions  whose  statues  were  worshipped  with  the  prin- 
cipal one.  Thus  there  must  have  been  a  special  fabulous  his- 
tory connected  with  each  group,  which  fact,  in  our  opinion, 
supposed  originally  a  poem,  or,  at  least,  some  tradition  in  verse, 
poetry  being  invariably  the  religious  language  of  ancient 
times.  We  have  observed  a  similar  fact  in  India,  but  not  to 
the  same  extent. 

Thus  religion — although  it  had  everywhere  in  this  country 
the  same  character,  which  one  invariably  recognizes  by  its 
Egyptian  look — was,  in  fact,  divided  to  an  incredible  extent 
into  individual  deities  for  individual  towns  and  villages.  In 
Egypt,  therefore,  not  only  was  the  religion  a  national  one — for 
idolatry  made  it  national  everywhere,  instead  of  universal,  as  it 
was  at  first — but  it  became  truly  an  institution  of  townships ; 
and  this  was  carried  to  extreme  by  animal-worship. 

The  doctrine  of  all  living  beings  partaking  of  a  spark  of  the 

universal  fire,  or  rather  of  a  divine  parcel  of  the  "  Universal 

Soul,"  gave  to  all  objects  a  strangely  superstitious  character. 

The  attention  of  Egyptians  had  been  very  early  attracted  by 

18 


256  GEXTILISIM. 

the  peculiar  habits  of  the  few  animals  indigenous  in  the  coun- 
try ;  for  the  territory  is  not  extensive,  only  a  narrow  belt  of 
four  or  five  miles  on  both  banks  of  the  Nile,  and  it  is 
covered  with  water  for  several  months  every  year.  Particular 
places  being  benefited  by  the  presence  of  some  animals,  these 
were  divinized  ;  other  localities  being  plagued  and  cursed  by 
the  presence  of  some  others,  these  were  treated  as  enemies. 
And  it  frequently  happened  that  the  animal-god  of  a  city  was 
looked  upon  with  horror  by  the  next  one  along  the  river. 
And  from  this  cause  arose  frequent  quarrels,  mutual  insults, 
even  wars  between  contiguous  localities.  To  such  an  extent 
of  absurdity,  odiousness,  and  barbarism  had  religion — if  thus 
it  must  be  called  —  been  debased  by  the  introduction  of 
idolatry. 

But  this  state  of  religious  disintegration,  if  we  may  call  it 
so,  supposed  a  previous  disintegration  of  the  country.  This 
phenomenon  has  been  remarked  of  other  regions,  but  of  India 
in  particular ;  and  our  proposition,  that  "  evidently  mankind 
began  by  clanship,"  has  an  especial  applicability  to  Egypt.  Ac- 
cording to  the  general  idea,  it  is  supposed  to  have  formed  a 
compact  kingdom,  rising  occasionally  to  the  proportions  of  a 
mighty  Empire,  as  it  did  under  Sesostris  ;  and  as  we,  in  mod- 
ern times,  are  accustomed  to  see  large  nationalities  existing 
with  a  high  state  of  centralization,  under  the  sway  of  one 
strong  and  ever-present  administration,  we  are  prone  to  con- 
clude, hastily,  that  it  has  always  been  so,  and  that  Egypt,  in 
particular,  was  a  powerful  State,  whose  parts  were  firmly  knit 
together  by  religion,  civilization,  and  customs.  But  this  is 
nothing  but  a  huge  mistake.  There  never  was  in  Egypt  such 
a  social  and  re'i^ious  compactness  before  the  Ptolemies,  and 
after  them  the  Romans.  And,  even  in  this  last  case,  the  unifi- 
cation was  rather  one  of  administration  than  of  social  customs. 

It  is  certain  that  under  the  Pharaohs,  and  long  after,  Egypt 
was  parcelled  out  into  a  great  number  of  small  districts  called 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  257 

"  nomes."  Learned  men  differ  as  to  the  precise  meaning  of 
this  word ;  some  deriving  it  from  the  Greek  vopog,  different 
from  vopos ;  others  thinking,  with  more  probability,  that  it  was 
originally  an  Egyptian,  or  perhaps  a  Phoenician,  expression. 
It  meant  a  territory  of  any  size,  small  generally,  around  a  city 
or  village.  The  same  word  was  used  by  the  author  of  the 
Book  of  Maccabees  (I  Lib.,  cap.  x.,  v.  30),  for  certain  small  dis 
tricts  in  Samaria  and  Galilee,  called  cities  in  the  Douai  ver- 
sion ;  and  by  Herodotus  (in  Thai.)  for  Persian  Satrapies  in 
general.  Isaiah  (cap.  xix.,  v.  2)  employs  a  word  generally  trans- 
lated by  kingdom,  and  which  the  Sept.  expresses  by  vo/i6? ;  and 
this  last  text  being  precisely  adapted  to  our  present  consider- 
ations, we  give  it  here  :  "  I  will  set  the  Egyptians  against  the 
Egyptians ;  and  they  shall  fight  brother  against  brother,  and 
friend  against  friend,  city  against  city,  kingdom  against  king- 
dom." This  last  expression  translated  by  vopog  in  the  Sept., 
is  very  remarkable. 

J.  J.  Hoffmann,  in  his  "  Lexicon  Universale,"  gives  a  list  of 
sixty-five  nomes  into  which  Egypt  was  divided.  Pliny  the 
Elder,  having  always  before  his  eyes  the  Roman  Empire,  calls 
them  Prcefecturas,  giving  us  to  understand  that  they  were 
merely  provinces  of  a  centralized  government.  But  from  what 
we  have  just  quoted  from  the  Book  of  Maccabees  and  from 
Isaiah,  it  would  appear  that  decentralization  was  rather  include! 
in  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  nome."  The  question  so  often 
raised  on  the  dynasties  of  Manetho  has  an  important  bearing 
on  this  part  of  our  subject.  Those  who  contended  last  century 
for  the  immense  period  of  time  required,  apparently,  by  the 
only  chronology  of  Egyptian  history  we  possess,  maintained, 
of  course,  that  the  dynasties  of  Manetho  were  all  successive. 
But,  although  Egyptologists  seem  to  have  now  adopted  this 
opinion,  there  are  very  good  reasons  for  supposing  that  a  cer- 
tain number  at  least  of  those  dynasties  were  simultaneous ;  and 
that,  for  a  long  time,  Egypt  was,  in  fact,  a  kind  of  "  pentarchy," 


258  GE3TILI8M. 

or  something  of  the  kind.  Rawlinson  shows  it  perfectly  well 
in  his  "  Herodotus."  The  virulence  with  which,  as  it  is  now 
ascertained,  "  nome  "  frequently  fought  against  "  nome,"  or  as 
Isaiah  says,  "  kingdom  against  kingdom,"  proves  clearly  like- 
wise that  to  consider  Egypt  as  a  compact  commonwealth,  ruled 
by  the  same  laws,  and  under  a  centralized  government,  is  alto- 
gether a  mistake.  When  the  worshippers  of  the  crocodile  went 
forth  in  battle  array  against  the  adorers  of  the  ichneumon — the 
destroyer  of  the  reptile's  eggs — we  do  not  read  that  the  Pha- 
raoh of  Memphis  or  of  Thebes  interfered,  at  least  usually.  It 
was  a  fight  of  clan  against  clan,  and  the  supreme  monarch  did 
not  think  his  authority  required  him  to  chastise  the  disturbers 
of  the  peace.  Each  one  had  a  right  to  fight  for  the  honor  of 
his  god.  We  see  at  a  glance  what  must  have  been  then  the 
state  of  society. 

But  there  is,  in  Strabo,  a  short  passage  which  supplies  a  very 
remarkable  incidental  confirmation  of  what  we  have  just  as- 
serted. In  Book  xi.,  ch.  xi.,  §  5th,  we  read :  "  When  I  was 
sailing  up  the  Nile,  schoeni — measures  of  distance — of  different 
lengths  were  used  in  passing  from  one  city  to  another,  so  that 
the  same  number  of  schoani  gave  in  some  places  a  longer,  in 
others  a  shorter,  length  of  the  voyage.  This  mode  of  compu- 
tation has  been  handed  down  from  an  early  period,  and  is  con- 
tinued to  the  present  time."  Strabo  speaks  of  a  fact  to  which 
he  was  himself  a  witness,  and  on  which  he  could  not  be  de- 
ceived. As  his  travelling  in  Egypt  took  place  under  Augustus, 
the  whole  country  was  cowed  into  submission,  and  strict  laws, 
which  the  Romans  knew  so  well  how  to  impose  and  execute, 
were  in  full  vigor  in  Egypt,  and  forced  it  to  be  one  and  whole. 
Yet  the  intelligent  observer  was  struck  with  a  fact  which  he 
could  not  explain,  having  not  deeply  studied  the  early  history 
of  the  country.  The  mile  around  Memphis  was  different  from 
the  mile  around  Thebes.  And  it  must  have  been  for  any 
traveller  a  source  of  inextricable  confusion,  to  have  to  adopt  a 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  239 

new  measure  of  distance  every  time  he  passed  "  from  one  city 

to  another."     It  was  the  confusion  which  existed  not  long  a"x> 

• 

in  Germany,  with  respect  to  coin  and  money,  and  which  the 
French  have  had  themselves  so  much  trouble  to  remedy  in 
their  own  country  by  their  modern  decimal  system  for  all  quan- 
tities. Formerly  France,  Germany,  Italy,  etc. ;  much  more,  in 
old  times,  Egypt,  India,  etc.,  were  partitioned  out  into  an  im- 
mense number  of  "  small  states,"  each  having  its  own  measures 
of  distance,  of  weight,  of  bulk,  etc.  Are  they  not  yet  to-day  in 
Spain  fighting  for  the  old  system  against  the  new  and  quite  re- 
cent one,  of  reducing  large  bodies  of  people  to  the  same  inflex- 
ible rules  of  what  they  call  unification  of  races  ?  Nothing  is  bet- 
ter calculated  than  this  short  passage  of  Strabo  to  give  to  the 
common  reader  an  idea  of  what  Egypt  must  then  have  been,  or 
rather  of  what  the  world  then  was ;  for  it  is  to  be  remarked  that 
the  whole  geography  of  Strabo  is  merely  a  record  of  "  tribes." 

Most  of  those  who  have  written  on  ancient  Egypt  suppose 
that  this  strange  superstition — animal  -  worship — existed  from 
the  most  ancient  times,  and  that  it  is,  in  fact,  a  part  of  the  "  pri- 
meval religion."  Do  they  not  still  see  it  everywhere  in  Africa, 
from  Ethiopia  to  Senegal  ?  What  must  have  been  its  cause  ? 
Unable  to  conjecture  a  satisfactory  one,  they  assume  that,  in 
the  "  infancy  of  nations,"  men  were  "  infants  "  probably,  and 
amused  themselves  with  those  strange  toys,  cats,  dogs,  etc.,  and 
admiring,  we  suppose,  their  curious  antics,  they  believed  them 
animated  by  a  "  divine  instinct" — divino  instinctu.  Thus  were 
they  led  to  divinize  the  vilest  animals,  such  as  serpents  and 
crocodiles.  We  find  hypotheses  of  this  kind  in  very  thought- 
ful writers,  for  whom  we  entertain  a  real  regard,  and  whom 
we  would  not  for  any  consideration  ridicule,  or  even  treat  with 
any  kind  of  disrespect.  Heeren  of  Gottingen  is  one  of  them. 

Our  readers  know  what  we  think  of  the  "  infancy  of  na- 
tions ;"  and  many  striking  facts  already  related  and  commented 
upon  in  these  pages,  show  how  different  the  first  period  of  hu- 


260  GE^TTILISM. 

man  society  was  from  the  barbarous  degradation  said  to  have 
existed  in  primitive  times.  Heeren  himself  believes,  and  we 
honor  him  for  it,  that  the  first  building  "erected  by  human 
hands  was  the  "  Tower  of  Babel,"  whose  stupendous  ruins,  he 
thinks,  exist  yet  in  our  days;  three  high  stories  out  of  eight. 
Men,  therefore,  built  then  for  eternity.  The  same  celebrated 
writer  has  told  us  what  he  believes  of  the  antiquity  and  the 
original  civilization  of  Ethiopia,  saying  in  as  many  words  that, 
"  History  itself  carries  us  back  to  those  ages  in  which  the  for- 
mation of  the  most  ancient  States  took  place,  and  has  thus  far 
shown  that  Meroe  was  one  of  them."  His  most  interesting 
historical  works  are  full  of  many  admissions  of  the  kind  ;  and 
in  very  few  modern  productions  of  human  literary  industry 
shall  we  find  so  many  arguments  fatal  to  modern  evolution- 
theorists.  Yet  he,  too,  speaks  of  the  "infancy  of  nations," 
and  of  the  childish  admiration  of  man  at  that  time  for  inferior 
animals  ;  an  admiration  going  so  far  as  to  make  them  his  gods 
and  to  worship  them.  And  he  calls  such  a  degrading  worship 
a  part  of  the  "primeval  religion."  When  he  wrote  this  he 
was  not  consistent  with  himself,  and  must  have  forgotten 
many  splendid  passages  of  a  contrary  purport  which  had  come 
from  his  own  pen,  and  which  will  give  him  an  honorable  and 
lasting  place  among  the  great  writers  of  our  day.  And  the 
only  reason  he  assigns  for  attributing  this  origin  to  "  animal- 
worship  "  is,  that  human  reason  cannot  explain  otherwise  such 
an  absurd  freak  of  human  superstition.  That  origin,  we  have 
showed,  is  sufficiently  explained  by  the  pantheistic  doctrines 
introduced .  in  Hindostan  and  in  Egypt  from  the  belief  in  a 
"  Universal  Soul ;"  an  obvious  corruption  of  the  first  doctrine 
of  an  Eternal,  Infinite,  Self-existent  Being  creating  the  world  ; 
and  thus  supposed  to  have  changed  from  invisible  to  visible. 
Animal-worship,  consequently,  derived  from  that  great  error, 
must  have  been  long  subsequent  to  the  primitive  times ;  and 
the  "  primeval  religion  "  must  have  known  nothing  of  it.  And 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  261 

although  we  have  not  ourselves  seen  any  of  the  antique  monu- 
ments of  India,  Egypt,  and  Ethiopia,  we  are  •  sure  that  nothing 
bearing  testimony  to  this  absurd  and  low  belief  can  be  found 
in  any  building  claiming  a  right  to  be  called  really  old.  Ac- 
cording to  the  authors  we  have  followed,  we  see  at  the  cradle 
of  African  civilization,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Meroe,  monu- 
ments of  a  severe  and  noble  style,  with  few  sculptures  and 
scarcely  any  hieroglyphs.  Further  on,  in  places  farther  north, 
on  piles  erected  during  the  high  material  civilization  of  the 
eighteenth  dynasty,  we  see  the  various  histories  of  Osiris  and 
Isis  ;  Phtah  and  Bast ;  Knum  and  Heka  ;  Amun-Ra  and  Mu. 
On  none  of  them  do  we  find  anything  relating  to  animal-wor- 
ship, except,  perhaps,  here  and  there  the  presence  of  the  ox 
Apis,  a  singular  emblem,  whose  meaning  was  well  known  to 
all  Egyptians.  If  anything  is  preserved  on  monuments  of  the 
worship  of  cats  or  dogs  or  crocodiles,  they  must  have  been 
built  in  the  latter  time  of  the  Pharaohs,  just  before  Cambyses 
came  with  his  Persians  to  protest  with  indignation  against  such 
a  degradation,  to  destroy  the  monuments  and  the  priests,  and 
to  obtain  from  posterity  the  title  of  a  mad  man,  because  he 
eould  not  overcome  the  wrath  excited  in  him  by  such  sights. 

The  recent  discoveries  made  by  Mr.  Mariette  around  Mem- 
phis are,  in  fact,  a  splendid  confirmation  of  our  thesis.  Close 
by  the  great  Sphinx  at  Gizeh,  but  certainly  much  more  ancient, 
he  found,  buried  in  the  sand  of  the  desert,  a  vast  temple  en- 
tirely constructed  of  enormous  blocks  of  black  or  rose-colored 
granite,  and  of  Oriental  alabaster,  without  any  sculpture  or  even 
ornament  of  any  kind.  Straight  lines  alone,  in  the  severest 
purity,  were  used  in  its  decoration.  , 

But  if  the  walls  of  this  temple  are  deprived  of  sculptural 
ornaments,  statues  have  been  found  in  it  which  deserve  a  brief 
mention.  They  were  certainly  chiselled  before  the  priestly 
"  Canon  of  proportions "  was  imposed  on  Egyptian  artists, 
consequently,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  nation.  They  are 


262  GENTILISM. 

merely  statues  of  kings  or  great  men  adorning  their  sepulchres. 
There  is  in  them  an  elegance  of  composition,  a  simplicity  and 
reality  of  movement,  a  life  in  all  the  figures,  such  as  to  con- 
vince the  beholder  that,  if  the  priesthood  had  not  imposed 
strict  ritual  rules,  the  beauty  of  Greek  art,  later  by,  perhaps, 
as  much  as  fifteen  centuries,  would  have  been  anticipated  in 
Egypt.  But  nowhere  could  Mr.  Mariette  find  in  this  temple 
any  proofs  of  the  subsequently  degraded  worship. 

In  the  "  infancy  of  nations,"  therefore,  at  least  in  Egypt, 
not  only  was  the  human  face  that  of  a  superior  being,  but  even 
his  life  was  that  of  a  Hindoo  risM  j  since,  on  the  walls  of 
those  tombs  of  the  primitive  dynasties  of  the  country,  are 
represented  all  the  scenes — domestic  or  agricultural — of  a  truly 
patriarchal  condition  ;  large  and  well-cultivated  farms,  numer- 
ous herds  of  cattle,  fish  and  game  in  abundance,  commodious 
houses  and  villas,  all  the  details  of  a  most  simple  but  truly  civil- 
ized life.  Not  so  a  thousand  years  later. 

Egypt  was  yet  under  the  domination  of  the  Persians  when 
Herodotus  visited  it ;  and  he  has  left  us  details  of  the  stupid 
veneration  of  the  people  for  animals,  which  is  simply  astonish- 
ing, when  we  reflect  on  the  progress  the  Egyptians  had  long 
before  made  in  civilization.  "  When  a  conflagration,"  he 
relates  (Euterpe,  66,  67),  "takes  place,  a  supernatural  impulse 
seizes  on  the  cats  of  the  neighborhood.  The  Egyptians,  stand- 
ing at  a  distance,  think  only  of  the  cats,  and  neglect  to  put  out 
the  fire.  Then  the  animals,  making  their  escape,  leap  over  the 
men  and  throw  themselves  into  the  fire.  "When  this  happens, 
great  lamentations  are  made  among  the  Egyptians.  In  what- 
ever house  a  cat  dies  of  a  natural  death,  all  the  family  shave 
their  eyebrows  only ;  but  if  a  dog  die,  they  shave  the  whole 
body  and  the  head.  All  deceased  cats  are  carried  to  certain 
sacred  houses,  where,  being  first  embalmed,  they  are  buried  in 
the  city  of  Bubastis.  All  persons  bury  their  dogs  in  sacred 
vaults  within  their  own  city ;  and  ichneumons  are  buried  in  the 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  263 

same  manner  as  the  dogs ;  but  field-mice  and  hawks  they  carry 
to  the  city  of  Buto  ;  the  ibis  to  Hermopolis  ;  the  bears,  which 
are  few  in  number,  and  the  wolves,  which  are  not  much  larger 
than  foxes,  they  bury  wherever  they  are  found  lying." 

Everybody  knows  how  all  these  details  have  been  verified 
by  modem  researches,  and  what  enormous  quantities  of  em- 
balmed cats,  in  particular,  have  been  found  in  Egypt  in  this 
century.  AYe  cannot  believe  that  the  people  who  built  the 
stupendous  monuments  of  Thebes  were  so  superstitious  and 
so  much  addicted  to  animal-worship  as  those  whom  Herodotus 
has  described  from  eyesight.  It  is,  no  doubt,  much  later  than 
even  the  eighteenth  or  nineteenth  dynasties  that  such  scenes 
began  to  take  place  in  Egypt. 

Yet  already,  long  before  the  time  of  Herodotus,  the  progress 
of  idolatry  had  introduced  strange  superstitions.  A  single 
example  will  suffice — an  example  which  will,  at  the  same  time, 
illustrate  the  old  Egyptian  exalted  doctrine,  and  show  how 
former  noble  traditions  had  been  altogether  forgotten  in  the 
midst  of  ever-advancing  degradation.  We  take  it  from  He- 
rodot.  II.,  42  :  "  The  Thebans,  and  those  who,  following  their 
example,  abstain  from  eating  mutton,  say  that  this  custom  was 
established  among  them  in  the  following  way :  Hercules 
(Khonsn)  was  desirous  of  seeing  Jupiter  (Amun),  but  Jupiter 
was  unwilling  to  be  seen  by  him  ;  at  last,  however,  as  Hercules 
persisted,  Jupiter  had  recourse  to  the  following  contrivance : 
Having  flayed  a  ram,  he  cut  off  the  head  and  held  it  before 
himself,  and  then  having  put  on  the  fleece,  he,  in  that  form, 
showed  himself  to  Hercules.  From  this  circumstance  the 
Egyptians  make  the  image  of  Jupiter  with  a  ram's  head ;  and 
from  the  Egyptians,  the  Ainmonians  (in  Ethiopia),  ....  and,  as 
I  conjecture,  the  Ammonians  from  hence  derived  their  name, 
for  the  Egyptians  call  Jupiter,  Ammon  (Amun)." 

It  is  evident  from  this  narrative  that  the  "  Father  of  His- 
tory "  attached  no  other  meaning  than  the  literal  one  to  this 


264  GENTILISM. 

apparently  absurd  tale ;  and  that  all  the  Egyptians  of  his  time, 
even  the  priests  with  whom  he  was  in  constant  communication, 
saw  no  deeper  meaning  in  it.  And  as  the  whole  country  was  full 
of  statues  with  rams'  heads  representing  Amun,  all  the  id^ea 
the  people  gathered  from  it  was  the  altercation  between  Amun 
and  Khonsu ;  and,  on  that  account,  many  of  them  abstained 
from  eating  mutton.  Yet  the  full  understanding  of  this  myth 
is  easy  for  us,  and  we  find  in  it  a  strong  confirmation  of  some 
of  our  previous  observations  on  the  monotheism  of  the  first 
Egyptians  :  Jupiter,  or  Amun  (simpliciter),  is  "  invisible," 
"  self-existent,"  the  "  highest,"  the  "  supreme."  He  cannot 
be  seen — understood  perfectly — by  inferior  gods,  his  creatures. 
Hercules  (Khonsu)  is  one  of  the  twelve  gods  of  the  second 
order,  according  to  Herodotus  in  another  passage  (II.  43). 
He  (Khonsu)  asks  to  see  Amun,  who  cannot  grant  his  request 
absolutely,  but  makes  use  of  a  "  contrivance  ;"  He  creates  the 
"visible"  world,  chiefly  the  Sun,  centre  of  it.  This  visible 
Amun  begins  his  course  every  year,  by  the  first  sign  of  the 
Zodiac  (Aries).  It  is  known  that  the  Egyptians  were  the  first 
inventors  of  the  Zodiac.  Every  year,  therefore,  when  the 
inhabitant  of  Egypt  sees  the  sun  enter  Aries* — the  Ram — he 
can  look  on  the  visible  representative  of  the  invisible  God,  who 
has  thus  "  covered  himself "  with  the  ram's  Tiead  and  fleece. 
Can  any  myth  be  more  consistent  and  perfect  in  all  its  parts, 
and  express  more  eloquently  the  truth  of  "  one  invisible 
God,  Creator  of  the  visible  Universe  ? "  Yet  the  Egyptians, 
the  priests  even,  had  entirely  lost  the  meaning  of  such  a  grand 
conception,  and  looked  only  on  the  contemptible  fable,  in- 
tended, at  first,  as  a  striking  symbol  to  remind  them  of  it. 
Thus  superstition  and  idolatry  had  crept  in,  and  the  people,  at 
first  imbued  with  a  sublime  doctrine  destined  to  last  forever, 

*  That  the  world  was  created  at  the  spring  equinox,  when  the  sun 
enters  Aries,  was,  we  think,  the  belief  of  many  ancient  nations,  and 
probably  of  the  Egyptians. 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  265 

had  become  adorers  of  rams  and  timid  fasters  from  the  flesli  of 
sheep  ! 

It  is  impossible  to  read  the  second  book  of  the  interesting 
History  dedicated  to  the  Nine  Muses,  without  a  feeling  of  sad 
pity.  We  find  there  the  artless  effusions  of  a  gifted  writer 
setting  out  from  his  native  Greeas,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
most  brilliant  period  of  its  existence — Greece  victorious  over 
the  Persians,  Greece  already  refined,  and  on  the  eve  of  reach- 
ing the  exquisite  culture  of  the  era  of  Pericles — he  reflects  in 
himself  all  the  intelligence,  culture,  refinement  of  his  native 
country  ;  he  comes  to  visit  a  land  celebrated  for  its  early  civil- 
ization, which  Solon  and  Pythagoras  had  already  admired, 
and  which  Plato,  with  many  other  men  of  genius,  would  visit 
later  ;  the  common  report  is,  that  it  is  a  land  not  only  of  mys- 
tery, but  of  wisdom ;  a  thoroughly  religious  country,  where 
many  sublime  truths  can  be  known  about  the  "  worship  of 
the  gods."  The  amiable  traveller  is  himself  religiously  in- 
clined, though,  too  often,  even  in  him,  the  future  scepticism 
of  his  countrymen  begins  to  appear.  Yet  he  is  careful  not  to 
betray  the  secrets  of  religion,  since  religion  has  secrets  in 
Egypt.  At  every  moment  he  says  that  "  he  would  speak  if  he 
dared  ;"  that  "  it  is  more  becoming  for  him  not  to  mention  it, 
though  he  knows  it ;"  that  the  obscenities  which  he  is  obliged 
to  relate  "  are  accounted  for  by  a  sacred  story  ;"  that  "  it  were 
impious  for  him  to  divulge"  the  reason  of  the  absurdities 
which  he  narrates,  etc.,  etc.  And  when,  finally,  garrulity  con- 
quers, and  he  says  what  he  "  ought  not  to  say ;"  when  he  feels 
that  he  has  betrayed  some  secret,  and  he  is  bound  to  pray  that 
"  he  may  meet  with  indulgence  and  pardon  both  from  gods 
and  heroes,"  the  secrets  which  he  unveils  are  as  ridiculous  as 
the  stories  themselves.  The  Thebans  abstain  from  mutton  be- 
cause Jupiter  covered  himself  with  a  ram's  skin  to  show  him- 
self to  Hercules ! 

"When  he  compares  the  religion  of  his  country  with  that  of 


266  GENTILISM. 

Egypt,  it  is  nearly  always  to  place  side  by  side  the  "  dresses  of 
the  gods ; "  the  "  Hercules "  of  one  country  with  that  of  the 
other ;  the  ridiculous  "  rites  "  of  the  Egyptians  with  the  yet 
more  childish  "  rites "  of  the  Lybians,  the  Phoenicians,  or  of 
his  own  Greeks.  Of  what  deserves  the  name  of  religion,  not  a 
word  !  And,  if  ancient  wisdom  has  spoken  in  the  land  of  mys- 
tery, and  the  word  she  spoke  reaches  the  ear  of  the  traveller,  it 
does  not  bring  to  his  mind  any  rational  thought ;  but  it  is  alto- 
gether a  jumble  of  puerilities  when  it  is  not  a  disgusting  spec- 
tacle of  coarseness.  Miss  Maria  Graham,  in  her  "  Journal  of  a 
Residence  in  India,"  (1812),  remarks  that,  "  The  coarseness  and 
inelegance  of  the  Hindoo  polytheism  will  certainly  disgust  many 
people  accustomed  to  the  graceful  mythology  of  Europe .... 
For  my  own  part,"  she  adds,  "  living  among  the  people,  and 
daily  beholding  the  prostrate  worshipper,  the  temple,  the  altar, 
and  the  offering,  I  take  an  interest  in  them  which  makes  up  for 
their  want  of  poetical  beauty."  And,  again,  in  another  place  : 
"  When  processions  are  in  honor  of  a  god,  they  take  place  dur- 
ing the  day ;  the  deity  is  carried  on  a  litter  in  triumph,  with 
banners  before  and  behind,  arid  priests  are  seen  carrying  flow- 
ers, and  milk  and  rice  ;  while  hardly  any  one  joins  the  proces- 
sion without  an  offering.  All  this  looks  very  well  at  a  distance, 
but  when  one  comes  near,  one  is  shocked  at  the  meanness  and 
inelegance  of  the  god,  and  at  the  filth  and  wretchedness  of  his 
votaries." 

Miss  Maria  Graham  would,  no  doubt,  have  been  highly 
pleased  with  polytheism  in  the  East,  in  her  time,  had  it  been 
polished  and  elegant,  as  that  of  Greece  and  Egypt  was  in  her 
opinion.  Yet  had  she  witnessed  the  scenes  described  by  Hero- 
dotus, as  he  saw  them  himself  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  she 
might  have  not  found  so  great  a  difference  between  the  poly- 
theism of  our  day  and  that  of  antiquity.  Let  the  reader  im- 
agine an  incredible  procession  of  boats  on  the  mighty  river,  con- 
veying seven  hundred  thousand  men  and  women  to  Bubastis  ; 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  20 7 

each  barge  filled  with  men  and  women  together,  some  of  the 
women  playing  on  castanets,  keeping  time  for  men  who  played 
on  the  flute,  the  remainder  of  the  human  cargoes  clapping 
their  hands,  singing  and  dancing  without  order.  Let  the 
reader  imagine,  we  say,  what  must  take  place,  not  on  the  voy- 
age only,  but  at  every  town  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  where  the 
huge  fleet  stopped  to  allow  the  travellers  the  pleasure  not  only 
of  bandying  words  with  the  inhabitants,  but  chiefly  of  so  out- 
raging decency,  that  our  pen  cannot  reproduce  the  words  of 
the  Greek  writer.  As  to  the  festival  itself,  at  Bubastis,  Hero- 
dotus does  not  attempt  to  describe  it,  but  he  merely  says : 
"  They  offer  up  great  sacrifices,  and  more  wine  is  consumed  at 
this  feast  than  in  all  the  rest  of  the  year."  But  with  respect 
to  the  ceremonies  which  accompany  the  yearly  sacrifice  of  swine 
to  Osiris,  we  shrink  from  even  an  allusion  to  the  obscenities  in 
open  air  which  disgrace  the  whole  proceedings. 

The  Egyptian  rites,  therefore,  in  the  time  of  Herodotus, 
were  as  gross  and  licentious  as  those  of  the  degraded  Hindoos 
of  our  days.  But  it  was  not  so  at  the  beginning.  Already 
have  we  been  told  that  nothing  can  be  found  on  the  primitive 
monuments  of  Nubfa  and  Ethiopia,  any  more  than  on  those  of 
ancient  Egypt,  that  "  could  offend  decency." 

We  need  dilate  no  more  on  the  gradual  decay  of  true  relig- 
ion in  ancient  Egypt.  The  process  of  disintegration  in  every 
respect  is  visible  enough.  Noble  religious  truths  spread  at 
first  over  a  great  part  of  Africa,  begin  by  admitting  a  mix- 
ture of  error.  Soon  the  genuine  dogmas  are  altogether  ob- 
scured, and  totally  forgotten,  although  still  preserved  in.  books 
which  have  not  yet  perished.  The  worship  of  elements  be- 
comes, then,  universal,  until  the  progress  of  art  brings  the  wor- 
ship of  idols,  which  ends  finally  in  rank  fetichism. 

All  the  various  tribes  of  the  third  continent,  which  had  at 
first  a  common  doctrine,  loose  it  and  are  reduced  each  to  its 
local  superstitions.  Religion  becomes  more  clannish,  perhaps, 


268  GENTTLISM. 

in  Egypt  than  in  any  other  country  on  earth.  What  we  see, 
now,  all  over  the  interior  of  that  vast  continent  is  merely  the 
result  of  this  long  process  of  mental,  social,  and  religious  disin- 
tegration. When  the  Romans  took  possession  of  the  lower 
basin  of  the  Nile,  the  whole  country  was  a  putrid  moral  cess- 
pool. Hence  there  was  not,  there  could  not  be,  the  slightest 
resistance  against  the  spread  of  their  power.  The  Christian 
religion  alone  gave  it  a  temporary  splendor  by  the  great  men 
whom  the  Church  produced  in  that  land  so  long  degraded; 
until  Mohammedanism  brutally  quenched  this  last  spark  of  holy 
fire,  only  to  bs  succeeded  by  what  we  now  witness  in  that  de- 
voted country. 

A  few  remarks,  in  conclusion,  on  the  "  Funereal  Ritual "  of 
the  ancient  Egyptians,  will  complete  our  argument  in  proof  of 
the  process  of  moral  deterioration  universal  in  ancient  history, 
in  so  far  as  Egypt  is  concerned.  We  quote  F.  Lenormant : 

"  The  Egyptians,"  says  Horappollo  in  the  Hieroglyphics, 
"  call  knowledge  '  sbo,'  that  is, '  food  and  plenty.'  This  passage 
certainly  contains  an  allusion  to  the  religious  ideas  as  deter- 
mining the  destiny  of  the  dead.*  Knowledge  and  food  are,  in 
fact,  identified  on  eveiy  page  of  the  Ritual1.  The  knowledge  of 
religious  truths  is  the  mysterious  nourishment  the  soul  must 
carry  with  it  to  sustain  it  in  its  jourmjys  and  trials.  A  soul 
not  possessing  this  knowledge  could  never  reach  the  end  of  its 
journey,  and  would  be  rejected  at  the  tribunal  of  Osiris.  It 
was,  therefore,  necessary,  before  commencing  the  journey,  to 
be  furnished  with  a  stock  of  this  divine  provision.  To  this 
end  is  destined  the  long  chapter,  the  seventeenth,  at  the  end  of 
the  second  part  of  the  book.  It  is  accompanied  by  a  large 
vignette,  representing  a  series  of  the  most  sacred  symbols  of 
the  Egyptian  religion.  The  text  contains  a  description  of  these 
symbols,  with  their  mystical  explanation.  At  the  beginning  of 
the  chapter,  the  descriptions  and  explanations  are  sufficiently 
clear,  but  as  it  advances,  we  get  into  a  higher  and  more  ob- 


CENTRAL    ASIA    AND    AFRICA.  269 

scure  region ;  at  the  end  of  the  chapter  we  lose  the  clue 
almost  entirely,  and,  as  often  happens  in  such  cases,  the  expla- 
nation ends  by  being  more  obscure  than  the  symbols  and  ex- 
pressions explained."  (Anc.  Hist,  of  the  East,  Yol.  1.) 

In  a  note  on  this  passage  reference  is  made  to  a  peculiarity 
of  the  text  first  pointed  out  by  Baron  Bunsen,  which  is  this : 
"  The  original  text  is,  after  every  sentence,  followed  by  a  com- 
mentary, explanation,  or  gloss,  prefaced  in  every  case  by  a 
group  of  characters  in  red,  meaning  '  The  explanation  is  this,' 
or  '  Let  him  explain  it*'  From  this  it  necessarily  arises :  first, 
that  the  text  had  by  a  certain  time  become  so  unintelligible  as 
to  require  an  explanation  ;  secondly,  that  the  explanation  itself 
had  in  its  turn  become  unintelligible  ;  and  finally,  that  the  text 
and  gloss,  equally  obscure,  had  been  jumbled  together,  and 
written  out  as  one  continuous  document."  ISTo  fact  could  bet- 
ter prove  that  any  text  requires  an  infallible  interpreter  to  be 
for  ever  proof  against  error. 

Here  we  have  a  very  simple,  natural,  and  probably  true  de- 
scription of  the  way  "  the  Egyptian  faith  "  had  become  a  real 
"  jumble  "  of  unintelligible  phrases ;  and  this  by  the  early  time 
of  the  eleventh  dynasty,  as  this  seventeenth  chapter  of  the 
"  Funereal  Ritual "  was  found  on  a  papyrus  of  that  age. 

Mr.  Alexis  Chevalier,  in  the  "  Correspondant "  of  Paris,  of 
the  10th  August,  1872,  writes  as  follows,  in  accordance  with 
the  opinions  of  such  men  as  de  Rouge,  Mariette,  Lenormant, 
etc. :  "  If  ancient  civilization,  particularly  that  of  Egypt,  has 
shed  a  brilliant  light,  it  is  only  because  the  great  things  accom- 
plished by  the  people  of  those  times  sprung  originally  from  the 
truths  and  virtues  of  the  natural  order,  and  likewise  from  the 
remains  of  the  primitive  Revelation,  of  which  the  religious 
and  moral  doctrines  of  the  Egyptians  have  so  clearly  showed  us 
the  footmarks. 

"  But  as  soon  as  those  traditions  decline  in  strength,  a  dis- 
agreement, nay,  a  contradiction  becomes  directly  more  and 


270  GE1STTILISM. 

more  sensible  between  the  healthy  moral  thoughts  primitively 
contained  in  the  Funereal  Kitual,  and  that  monstrous  religion 
which  degraded  the  soul  of  man  by  the  worship  of  animals,  and 
let  loose  by  its  shameless  mysteries  all  the  depraved  inclina- 
tions of  our  fallen  nature  .... 

"  Under  the  pernicious  influence  of  this  corrupt  religion  the 
moral  vigor  of  man  is  weakened,  social  order  becomes  less  vig- 
orous, and  the  nation  finds  itself  powerless  to  repel  foreign  in- 
vasion ....  We  all  know  how  animal-worship  had  rendered 
the  Egyptians  ridiculous  and  contemptible  in  the  eyes  of  other 
nations.  After  having  obtained  a  complete  victory  before  Pe- 
lusiuin,  merely  by  placing  a  number  of  cats,  of  dogs,  and  other 
*  sacred'  animals  in  the  front  rank  of  his  army,  Cambyses 
made  it  a  point  of  killing  with  his  own  hand  the  ox  Apis,  to 
show  his  worshippers  the  powerlessness  of  their  god  .... 

"  The  more  we  go  up  towards  the  origin  of  the  Egyptian 
nation,  the  clearer  we  find,  in  their  primitive  purity,  the  prin- 
ciples of  tlie  natural  law  revealed  to  man  at  first  by  God  him- 
self :  the  adoration  of  one  only  God,  creator  of  the  world  and 
of  man ;  paternal  authority  and  the  respect  due  to  parents  by 
their  children  ;  the  love  of  the  neighbor ;  the  necessity  of  labor ; 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  due  rewards  and  punishments 
after  this  life  .  .  .  ." 

"  But  the  more  we  go  down  in  time,  and  farther  from  the 
cradle  of  primitive  society,  the  more  altered  we  find  the  pri- 
mordial truths  and  divine  traditions  by  the  invasion  of  polythe- 
ism, which  had  perverted  everything  on  earth  when  the  Re- 
deemer finally  appeared. 

"A  time  shall  finally  come,"  says  Hermes  Trismegistus, 
quoted  by  St.  Augustine  (De  Civ.,  Dei  viii.,  23,  26),  "  when 
it  will  be  found  that  in  vain  have  the  Egyptians  first  honored 
God  rightfully  and  faithfully ;  their  most  holy  worship  shall 
have  brought  them  no  profit,  and  go  out  in  smoke  ....  Then 
this  venerable  land,  consecrated  of  old  by  innumerable  temples 


CENTRAL   ASIA   AND   AFRICA.  271 

and  altars,  shall  be  henceforth  full  only  of  dead  bodies  and  of 
sepulchres." 

With  these  quotations  we  close  our  argument,  in  so  far  as 
Egypt  is  concerned,  and  we  think  our  induction  was  equally 
convincing  with  respect  to  India :  that  nations  left. to  them- 
selves, retrograde  invariably ;  at  least,  that  they  did  so  in  the 
time  previous  to  Christianity,  from  truth  to  error,  from  a  pure 
morality  to  degradation,  from  a  truly  civilized  but  simple  state, 
to  an  artificial  and  brilliant  corruption,  ending  in  moral  putrid- 
ity and  national  dishonor. 
19 


CHAPTER  Y. 


KELIGION     IN     PELASGIC     GKEECE. 


I. 


THAT  Europeans  are  not  autochthones,  but  came  from  an- 
other continent — that,  consequently,  the  most  primitive  inhab- 
itants of  the  western  part  of  the  old  world  were  not  of  native 
growth,  but  immigrants  from  an  original  foreign  country — is 
now  admitted  by  all.  And  the  strange  theory  so  prevalent  a 
few  years  back,  which  supposed  many  "  centres  of  creation," 
even  for  man,  seems  now  to  be  forgotten,  until,  perhaps,  our 
grandchildren  hear  of  it  again  in  some  other  shape.  A  Dar- 
winian may,  possibly,  conclude  that  we  came  from  Asia  or 
Africa ;  since,  with  the  exception  of  the  rock  of  Gibraltar, 
where  a  few  monkeys  amuse,  by  their  gambols,  the  English  gar- 
rison settled  there,  no  individual  of  the  Simian  family,  from 
which  man  is  said  to  have  sprung,  can  claim  Europe  for  its 
native  country.  We  prefer,  on  the  score  of  reason  alone,  to 
conclude  that  the  creation  of  the  primitive  man  did  not  take 
place  in  Europe ;  and  all  are  now  of  this  opinion,  some  for  one 
reason,  some  for  another.  History,  geography,  philology,  give 
the  various  proofs  leading  to  that  conclusion,  independently  of 
revealed  truth.  History  began  evidently  in  Asia  and  Africa, 
and  except  upon  the  supposition  of  the  previous  population  of 
these  two  continents,  European  history,  from  the  start,  would 
be  a  puzzle.  Asia,  especially,  is  the  great  and  high  centre,, 
looming  up  in  the  distance  of  ages,  from  which  the  diverse 
streams  of  human  annals  took  their  rise  and  began  to  flow.  A 
*  (272) 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  273 

few  years  back  some  ingenious  writers  tried  to  make  geography 
the  great  prop  of  the  same  truth ;  and  Mr.  E.  Pococke,  in  his 
"  India  in  Greece,"  produced  an  immense  number  of  names  of 
mountains,  rivers,  lakes,  and  cities  indicating  Asia  and  North 
Hindostan,  in  particular,  as  the  primitive  spot  whence  tribes 
started  in  search  of  a  new  home  in  the  wilds  of  the  West. 
Precisely  in  the  same  way,  as  some  future  writer  will  be  able 
to  show,  that  America  and  Australia  were  colonized  by  Euro- 
peans merely  by  the  various  names  given  to  the  geographical 
features  of  these  two  continents.  But  philology,  especially, 
has  of  late  been  adduced,  with  great  force,  to  prove  that  it  is 
to  the  great  plateau  of  Central  Asia  we  must  look  for  the  real 
origin  of  all  European  nations,  with  the  trivial  exception  of  the 
Turks,  the  Magyars,  and  the  Finns.  Sanscrit  seems  to  be  the 
mother  tongue,  though  some  philologists  suppose  a  more  an- 
cient and  primitive  language  out  of  which  even  the  Sanscrit 
arose.  But  the  very  interesting  discoveries  of  Max  Miiller  in  his 
"  Comparative  Philology,"  establish  an  intimate  connection 
between  Europe  and  Central  Asia — the  precise  spot  to  which 
we  traced,  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  original  seat  of  the 
Vedas  and  the  Zends.  A  new  name  has  been  given  to  the 
whole,  or  rather  a  very  old  name  has  been  revived,  and  Europe 
speaks  again  of  the  Aryans  as  of  her  ancestors.  God  be 
praised  !  The  current  of  European  opinion,  this  time,  does  not 
run  counter  to  revealed  truth.  For  the  latter,  together  with 
the  whole  voice  of  antiquity,  had  taught  us  to  believe  that  the 
population  of  Europe  and  of  Northern  Asia  was  Japhetic ;  and 
the  word  Aryan,  after  all,  means  only  the  posterity  of  Japhet. 
A  Catholic,  therefore,  can  now  embrace  Science  as  a  daughter 
of  heaven,  and  replace,  with  her  help,  the  true  foundation  of 
the  history  of  man.  And,  at  the  same  time  that  the  dignity  of 
our  species  is  asserted  anew,  and  the  belief  of  our  first  ancestors 
is  proved  to  have  been  that  of  rational  beings,  namely,  the  wor- 
ship of  one  Supreme  God ;  the  true  origin  of  error,  and  the 


274  GENTILISM. 

unfortunate  spread  of  polytheism,  become  finally  evident,  and 
show  conclusively  how  the  author  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom 
knew  well  history  as  well  as  ethics. 

But  in  Europe,  Hellas  must  be  the  first  subject  of  our  inves- 
tigations, as  she  is  the  first  spot  where  positive  history  appears, 
and  from  her  all  Europe,  except  the  Celtic  and  the  northern 
Germanic  races,  received  truth  and"  error. 

First,  let  us  describe,  in  a  few  words,  what  the  new  discov- 
eries in  philology  have  rendered  probable  with  respect  to  the 
migration  of  primitive  tribes  from  the  starting-point  of  the 
great  plateau  of  Central  Asia.  It  seems  to  us  to  be  only  a 
detailed  commentary  of  what  the  Book  of  Genesis*  had  long 
previously  stated. 

The  first  migration  is  admitted  to  have  consisted  of  the  ances- 
tors of  the  Celts  or  Kelts,  the  posterity  of  Gomer^Kymris), 
established  first  on  the  northern  shore  of  the  Black  Sea.  Later, 
the  Teutonic  people,  perhaps  Magog,  a  general  term  for  tribes 
north-west  of  Caucasus,  rather  than  Tartars,  together  with  the 
Greeks  and  Italians  (Javan).  All  these,  it  is  now  said,  would 
seem  to  have  made  their  way  to  their  new  settlements,  through 
Persia  and  Asia  Minor,  crossing  to  Europe  by  the  Hellespont, 
some,  perhaps,  through  the  passes  of  the  Caucasus.  The 
Sclavonic  nations  are  thought  to  have  afterwards  taken  their 
route  by  the  north  of  the  Caspian.  They  may  be  indicated  by 
the  Teras  of  Genesis,  the  river  Tiras,  or  the  Dniester.  Finally, 
the  Medes,  Persians,  and  North  Hindoos  are  supposed  to  have 
been  the  last  emigrants  from  Central  Asia,  through  the  passes 
of  the  Himalaya  and  Hindu  Kush.  "We  do  not  see  precisely 
why  this  should  have  been  the  last  emigration.  Genesis 
places  the  one  of  the  Madai  directly  after  that  of  Magog.  In 
our  opinion,  the  direction  southward  must  have  been  one  of 
the  first  taken  by  the  migrating  patriarchal  peoples.  Yet  it  is 
certainly  remarkable  that  modern  investigators,  in  working 
away  at  their  speculations  derived  only  from  the  comparative 


• 

RELIGION    IN   PELASGIC    GKEECE.  275 

study  of  Sanscrit  and  European  languages,  without  having,  for 
a  moment,  in  their  minds,  we  are  sure,  the  thought  either  of 
Genesis  or  of  Japhet,  should  happen  to  give  us  a  new  interpre- 
tation of  a  few  verses  of  the  first  book  of  Moses.  So  it  is, 
however.  Only,  there  is  no  question  any  more  of  the  Tower  of 
Babel,  which  was  generally,  until  lately,  considered  as  the 
starting-point  of  those  primitive  migrations.  Central  Asia 
now  replaces  it.  But  it  is  to  be  remarked  that  the  history  of 
Babel's  edifice  is  given  in  Chap.  xi.  of  Genesis,  and  the  list  of 
nations,  which  subsequently  separated  from  each  other,  in 
Chap.  x.  The  writer,  therefore,  did  not  intend  to  establish  a 
connection  between  the  various  settlements  of  the  nations 
alluded  to  and  the  confusion  of  tongues  ;  and  thus  there  is  not 
the  least  discrepancy  between  our  sacred  text  and  the  modern 
discoveries  ;  and  this  is  a  very  favorable  circumstance  for  the 
"  discoveries,''  as  the  "  sacred  text,"  in  our  opinion,  never  had 
anything  to  fear  from  modern  investigators. 

"We  are,  therefore,  brought  back  by  the  labors  of  recent 
ethnologists  and  linguists  to  the  time-honored  book  and  termi- 
nology, dear  to  Christians ;  and  we  may  now,  again,  speak  of 
the  Japhetic  race  without  fear  of  being  "  unscientific."  We 
come,  therefore,  to  consider  the  Javan  (Ionian)  family  in  that 
great  race.  The  questions  we  propose  to  ourselves  are  :  What 
is  its  origin  ?  What  was  its  primitive  religion  ?  How  did  it 
degenerate  into  the  polytheist  anthromorphism  of  which  our 
classical  studies  have  so  well  informed  us  ? 


II. 


The  various  branches  of  the  Japhetic  or  Aryan  family  which 
remained  in  Asia  continued  for  many  ages  civilized,  polished, 
monotheists ;  or,  only  if  not  pure  monotheists,  at  least  men 
whose  religion  was  just  on  the  borders  of  that  broad  and  grand 


276  GENTILISM. 

pantheism  to  which  we  have  had  occasion  to  allude  so  often. 
Probably  the  Vedas  and  the  Zends,  containing  at  first  the 
main  doctrines  of  the  primitive  revelation,  were  written  for 
them  after  their  less  fortunate  brethren  had  left  for  the 
North-west.  These,  therefore,  could  take  with  them  no  copy  of 
those  great  works.  Had  they  at  the  time  an  alphabet  ?  It  is 
probable  ;  since  they  knew  so  well  the  Sanscrit.  Had  they  in 
their  possession  a  written  literature  of  any  kind  ?  The  prob- 
ability is,  that  they  had  not ;  since  they  made  such  indifferent 
custodians  of  the  language  they  possessed  on  parting,  and  made 
subsequently  such  a  poor  use  of  it  in  the  various  settlements 
they  occupied. 

The  language,  at  least,  which  they  brought  with  them  could 
not  be  but  strangely  modified  by  the  various  dialects  of  the 
nations  through  whose  territory  they  had  to  pass.  A  great 
number  of  tribes  had  migrated  before  them,  going  in  the  same 
direction  ;  and  Mr.  Max  Miiller  has  shown,  in  his  "  Languages 
of  the  Seat  of  War,"  that,  from  that  early  period  to  this,  the 
Western  part  of  Asia  and  the  South-east  of  Europe  have  been 
inhabited  by  nations  speaking  an  incredible  number  of  tongues. 
"  The  Caucasus  itself,"  he  says,  "  is  called  by  the  Persians  the 
mountain  of  languages ;  and  the  diversity,  of  dialects  spoken 
there  in  every  valley  has  been  the  chief  obstacle  to  a  united 
resistance  on  the  part  of  the  Caucasian  tribes  against  Russia. 
The  South-east  of  Europe  has  indeed  long  been  notorious  as  a 
Babel  of  tongues.  Herodotus  (iv.,  24)  tells  us  that  caravans  of 
Greek  merchants,  following  the  course  of  the  Volga  upwards  to 
the  Ural  mountains,  were  accompanied  by  seven  interpreters, 
speaking  seven  different  languages.  These  must  have  com- 
prised Sclavonic,  Tartaric,  and  Finnic  dialects,  spoken  in  those 
countries  in  the  time  of  Herodotus  as  well  as  at  the  pres- 
ent day.  In  yet  earlier  times  the  South-east  of  Europe  was 
the  resting-place  for  the  nations  who  transplanted  the  seed  of 
Asia  to  European  soil.  Three  roads  were  open  to  their  North- 


RELIGION   IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  277 

« 

westward  migrations.  One  east  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  and  west 
of  the  mountains,  leading  to  the  North  of  Asia  and  Europe. 
Another  on  the  Caucasian  Isthmus,  when  they  would  advance 
along  the  northern  coast  of  the  Black  Sea,  and  following  the 
course  of  the  Dnieper,  Dniester,  or  Danube,  be  led  into  Russia 
or  Germany. 

"A  third  road  was  defined  by  the  Taurus  through  Asia  Minor, 
to  the  point  where  the  Hellespont  marks  the  '  path  of  the  Hel- 
lenes '  into  Greece  and  Italy.  While  the  main  stream  of  the 
Aryan  nations  passed  on,  carrying  its  waves  to  the  northern  and 
western  shores  of  Europe,  it  formed  a  kind  of  eddy  in  the  Car- 
pathian peninsula,  and  we  may  still  discover  in  the  stagnant  dia- 
lects, north  and  south  of  the  Danube,  the  traces  of  the  flux  and 
reflex  of  those  tribes  who  have  since  become  the  ruling  nations 
of  Europe.  The  barbarian  inroads,  which,  from  the  seventh  cen- 
tury after  Christ,  infested  the  regions  of  civih'zation,  and  led  to 
the  destruction  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  Empires,  followed  all 
the  same  direction.  The  country  near  the  Danube  and  the 
Black  Sea  has  been  for  ages  the  battle-field  of  Asia  and  Europe. 
Each  language  settled  there  on  the  confines  of  civilization  and 
barbarism  recalls  a  chapter  of  history." 

We  can  understand  how  many  obstacles  were  thus  placed  in 
the  path  of  the  future  Hellenes  and  Italians.  But  the  worst, 
for  them,  was  the  aspect  of  the  unpromising  countries  which 
they  were  going  to  turn  into  a  paradise.  We  talk  of  our 
Western  American  colonists  being  hardy  pioneers,  and  carry- 
ing  civilization  into  the  wilds  of  the  far-west !  We  think  it 
quite  natural  that  these  restless  roamers  over  our  immense 

Cairies,  should  become  half  barbarians  and  savages  on  the  bor- 
rs  of  civilization !  How  different  is  their  position  in  these 
recent  days !  Were  our  emigrants  to  the  West  to  profit  by  all 
the  advantages  they  enjoy,  there  would  be  no  necessity  what- 
ever for  them  to  fall  into  barbarism  and  uncouth  savagery. 
But  could  the  wretched  children  of  the  third  son  of  Noah  avoid 


278  GENTILISM. 

» 

the  terrible  fate  of  lapsing  into  barbarous  manners,  and  of  fall- 
ing into  the  most  brutal  ignorance  and  superstition  ?  The 
more  that  they  were  destined  to  have  no  more  any  intercourse 
whatever  with  their  original  country,  and  to  forget  it  so  en- 
tirely, that  it  would  take  very  nearly  four  thousand  years  to 
recover  their  claim  of  lineage  with  their  real  ancestors. 

Picture  we,  then,  these  migrating  tribes,  as  they  wandered 
away  from  their  early  civilization,  making  a  path  for  them- 
selves through  the  tangled  and  interminable  forests,  stretching 
north  and  west  as  far  as  the  ocean,  and  obliged  to  cross  the 
redoutable  mountains  of  Northern  Persia,  of  Armenia,  of  the 
Caucasus ;  where  first  one  of  them,  Prometheus,  a  representa- 
tive man,  was  to  be  bound  and  nailed  to  a  rock,  and  exposed  to 
the  cruel  talons  of  the  vulture.  * 

In  how  many  places  did  they  not  stop  and  attempt  a  settle- 
ment ?  How  often,  after  immense  labors,  were  they  not  obliged 
to  give  up  the  hope  of  finding  a  new  country  in  a  place  which 
at  first  appeared  desirable  ?  But  the  forests,  the  interminable 
forests  were  everywhere  in  their  way.  Then,  perhaps,  they 
would  move  on,  in  the  hope  of  lighting  on  some  more  promis- 
ing spot  for.  a  settlement,  only  to  find  the  same  difficulties  re- 
newed. 

Mr.  E.  Pococke,  in  "  India  in  Greece,"  represents  the  move- 
ments of  those  immense  armies  of  emigrants  under  a  very  dif- 
ferent aspect.  If  we  are  to  believe  him,  they  went  on  in  an 
uninterrupted  stream  from  their  starting-point  to  their  ultimate 
destination,  without  difficulty,  without  a  moment  of  hesitation,^ 
without  a  shadow  of  obstacle.  They  appear  to  have  been  di- 
rected, as  the  Ethiopians  were,  according  to  Herodotus,  by  "  tha 
voice  of  the  oracle ;"  and  they  stopped  only  when  they  reached 
the  spot  indicated  by  the  "  divine  commandment."  ~No  sooner 
arrived,  than  they  began  b/  mapping  out  their  new  country 
exactly  on  the  pattern  of  their  old  one ;  and  they  gave  to  givers, 
mountains,  lakes,  etc.,  the  names  of  similar  geographical  fea- 


KELIGION    IN   PELASGIC    GEEECE.  279 

tures  in  their  former  dwelling-place.  Thus  it  happens  that 
Mr.  Pococke  could  write  "  India  in  Greece,"  with  two  maps ; 
one  of  the  north  of  Hindostau,  the  other  of  Hellas  itself,  with 
corresponding  names  and  indications,  making  the  nomencla- 
ture of  the  two  territories  almost  exactly  alike. 

But  evidently  he  had  not  been  one  of  the  primitive  travel- 
lers ;  he  had  not  even  come  to  North  America  to  see  how  these 
things  are  generally  done;  but  he  quite  forgot  to  picture  to 
himself  the  world  as  it  must  have  been  at  the  time  of  the  old 
migration  of  the  sons  of  Japhet,  or,  if  you  choose,  of  the  "Aryan 
tribes ;"  and  has,  consequently,  produced  a  work,  which,  how- 
ever full  of  curious  erudition,  is  fantastic  and  visionary  in  the 
highest  degree.  He  maintains,  for  example,  that  those  "  Aryan 
tribes"  were  at  the  same  time  "  Buddhist  ;"  and  has  been 
compelled  to  make  the  brilliant  Athenians,  the  decendants  of 
the  "  Attock,"  a  gloomy  .Buddhist  community  of  the  Punjab  ! ! 
although  Buddhism  originated  more  than  a  thousand  years 
later.  Yet  with  all  the  strangeness  and  incongruities  of  the 
book,  with  its  false  conclusions  and  absurd  theories,  it  shows 
conclusively  that  the  "Hellenes"  must  have  been  formerly 
deeply  connected  with  the  Hindoos ;  and  .no  man  of  any  under- 
standing and  knowledge  would  at  this  time  contradict  this 
position. 

The  circumstance  mentioned  above,  however,  namely,  the 
incredible  hardships  sustained  by  the  emigrants  from  Northern 
Hindostan  to  the  West,  must  be  insisted  upon,  as  it  gives  so 
evident  and  satisfactory  a  reason  of  the  state  of  barbarism  in 
which,  according  to  all  ancient  authors,  the  first  inhabitants  of 
Greece  were  plunged.  Had  not  Prometheus,  according  to 
JEschylus,  speaking  the  language  of  universal  tradition  (Prometh. 
vinctus),  "  to  invent  for  them  the  senses  of  sight  and  of  hear- 
ing ?  To  bring  them  out  of  their  caves  and  teach  them  how  to 
build  wooden  houses  ?  To  make  them  first  observe  the  differ- 
ence of  seasons,  of  hard  winter,  and  flowery  spring,  and  fruitful 


280  GENTILISM. 

summer  ?  To  discover  for  them  numbers,  and  the  combina- 
tions of  letters,  and  even  memory,  the  effective  mother-nurse 
of  all  arts?" 

From  the  traditions  of  Greece,  this  narrative  of  the  primitive 
state  of  man  was  handed  down  as  the  first  page  of  the  annals  of 
all  Europeans.  In  their  long  ramblings  through  the  wilds  of 
the  western  continent  the  wretched  emigrants  from  Asia  had 
well-nigh  forgotten  the  comparatively  brilliant  state  enjoyed 
by  all  in  their  former  country.  And  can  we  wonder  that  relig- 
ious doctrines  had  been  in  the  main  forgotten  like  all  things 
else  conducive  to  their  comfort  and  civilization  ? 

But  here  the  inquiry  naturally  presents  itself,  Were  the  first 
settlers  in  the  country  we  now  call  Greece,  Hellenes  ?  Were 
they  not  rather  PELASGIANS  ?  What  of  them  ? 


III. 


Certainly  Pelasgic  tribes — thus  were  they  called — dwelt  in 
very  early  times  all  over  Greece,  chiefly  in  Thrace  at  the  north 
of  it,  and  in  many  districts  of  Western  Asia,  and  of  Southern 
Italy,  and  in  the  islands  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea ;  in  fact, 
wherever  the  Greek  tribes  latterly  spread  themselves  and  their 
language  ultimately  prevailed.  In  spite  of  profound  researches 
in  all  the  annals  of  antiquity  which  yet  remain  in  our  hands,  in 
spite  of  the  ingenuity  of  modern  critics,  and  of  the  light 
thrown  recently  over  many  particularities  of  the  life  of  nations 
until  this  time  unknown,  no  satisfactory  solution  has  yet  ap- 
peared of  this  question,  Who  were  the  Pelasgians  ?  We  will 
not  attempt  to  discuss  it,  as  it  does  not  lie  directly  in  our  way. 
It  is  generally  believed  that  the  extraordinary  ancient  build- 
ings, known  as  Cyclopean,  whose  ruins  are  yet  found  all  over 
the  above-mentioned  countries,  we're  their  work.  They  were  at 
the  same  time  an  agricultural  and  warlike  people,  but  more  the 


EELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  281 

former  than  the  latter.  They  were  constantly  moving,  often 
crossing  the  sea,  yet  not  given  over  to  trade,  like  the  Phoenicians, 
who  came  after  them.  These  characteristics  seem  pretty  well 
ascertained,  and  are  generally  admitted  by  all  writers.  But 
what  relations  had  they  to  the  Hellenes  ?  For  a  long  time  the 
two  races  were  contemporaneous.  Herodotus  says  that  their 
language  was  "  barbarous," — that  is  to  say,  "  foreign  "  to  the 
Greeks;  but  this  does  not  suppose  a  totally  different  tongue. 
A  dialect  not  easily  understood  at  first  would  suffice  for  the 
epithet.  Homer  sometimes  speaks  of  both  nations  as  belong- 
ing to  the  same  race.  At  other  times  he  distinguishes  them 
and  seems  not  to  agree  with  himself.  But,  without  quoting 
ancient  authorities,  which  have  been  sufficiently  examined  by 
modern  investigators,  the  opinion  of  those  who,  in  our  days, 
think  tliat  the  Pelasgians  gradually  passed  into  the  Hellenes, 
and  these  last  insensibly  came  from  the  first,  is  respectable  and 
seems  to  us  the  most  probable,  precisely  from  the  indistinctness 
of  the  difference,  even  in  the  eyes  of  those  who  admit  a  differ- 
ence. Both,  moreover,  can  be  reconciled,  by  admitting  that 
the  "  Javans  " — Javanas  in  Sanscrit — did  not  migrate  all  at  once 
from  Central  Asia,  but  that  the  first  migratory  band  took  the 
name  of  Pelasgians,  and  the  second  one  that  of  Hellenes.  For 
certainly  all  must  admit  now,  after  the  labors  of  Muller  and 
others,  that  both  came  from  the  same  original  centre. 

It  is  the  religion  of  those  migrating  tribes,  however,  which 
chiefly  concerns  our  investigations.  And  here  a  great  uncer- 
tainty prevails,  as  in  the  case  of  Egypt,  chiefly  on  account  of 
the  want  of  documents,  arising  from  the  uncivilized  state  to 
which  they  were  necessarily  reduced  by  all  the  circumstances  of 
their  migration. 

We  learn  from  Herodotus  (Euterpe,  52),  that  "  Formerly  the 
Pelasgians  sacrificed  all  sorts  of  victims  to  the  gods  with  prayers, 
as  I  was  informed  at  Dodona ;  tftit  they  gave  no  surname  or 
name  to  any  of  them,  for  they  had  not  yet  heard  of  them ;  but 


282  GENTILISH. 

they  called  them  gods — Theoi,  because  they  had  set  in  order  and 
ruled  over  all  things.  In  course  of  time,  they  heard  the  names 
of  the  other  gods  that  were  brought  from  Egypt,  and  after 
some  time  that  of  Dionysus.  On  this  question  they  consulted 
the  oracle  of  Dodona,  for  this  oracle  is"  accounted  the  most 
ancient  of  those  that  are  in  Greece,  and  was  then  the  only  one. 
When,  therefore,  the  Pelasgians  inquired  at  Dodona  whether 
they  should  receive  the  names  that  came  from  the  barbarians, 
the  oracle  answered,  that  they  should.  From  that  time,  there- 
fore, they  gave  names  to  the  gods  in  their  sacrifices,  and  the 
Grecians  afterwards  received  them  from  the  Pelasgians." 

This  is  a  most  important  passage,  as  it  explains  very  natu- 
rally the  origin  of  idolatry  in  Greece.  The  Pelasgians  had  left 
Central  Asia  before  the  worship  of  elements  had  introduced 
polytheism.  Indra,  Agni,  Cuhu,  etc.,  were  not  yet  individual- 
ized. They  were  merely  aspects  of  nature  calling  back  the 
mind  to  God ;  and  were  known,  probably,  under  the  general 
name  of  "  devatas."  The  Pelasgians,  in  their  new  country, 
called  them  "  Theoi,"  in  general.  When  they  heard  of  the 
individual  names  given  by  the  Egyptians  to  their  gods,  they  in- 
quired of  the  oracle  at  Dodona,  which  their  growing  superstition 
had  already  established,  and  the  "  lying  oracle  "  deceived  them. 
Hence  their  acceptance  of  individual  names  for  their  gods; 
that  is  to  say,  of  idolatry,  which  they  passed  over  to  the 
Hellenes. 

A  discovery  made  by  modern  collectors  of  Pelasgic  antiqui- 
ties, not  long  since,  still  further  illustrates  this  part  of  our  sub- 
ject. A  curious  piece  of  sculpture,  of  undoubted  Pelasgic 
origin,  was  ascertained  to  be  a  goavov,  or  Divine  Image  of 
Orpheus ;  showing  that  this  more  than  half-mythic  personage 
was  truly  Pelasgic,  and  must  be  referred  to  the  Ante-Hellenic 
period. 

A  reflection  of  Heeren  will  help  us  to  the  conclusion  we 
would  draw  from  these  two  facts.  It  is  taken  from  his 


RELIGION    IX    PELASGIC    GREECE.  283 

"Ancient  Greece,"  Chap.  iii.  :  "  The  feelings  of  religion  can 
be  unfolded,  and  thus  the  character  of  our  existence  ennobled, 
even  before  a  high  degree  of  knowledge  has  been  attained.  It 
•would  be  difficult,  and,  perhaps,  impossible,  to  find  a  nation 
which  can  show  no  vestiges  of  religion ;  and  there  never  yet 
has  been,  nor  can  there  be,  a  people  for  whom  the  reverence 
paid  to  a  superior  being  was  but  the  fruit  of  refined  philo- 
sophy." 

There  can,  certainly,  be  no  doult  that  God  spoke  to  the 
patriarchs  before  philosophy  systematized  human  knowledge. 
The  language  of  divine  revelation  cannot  contradict  that  of 
reason,  yet  is  superior  to  it ;  fii  st,  because  it  unfolds  truths 
which  reason  could  not  attain  ;  and,  secondly,  because  the  truths 
demonstrable  by  human  reason,  as  the  existence  of  God,  His 
unity,  etc.,  are  "much  more  safely  guarded  and  secured  to  man- 
kind when  they  form  a  part  of  a  religion  coining  from  heaven. 
On  this  account  God,  full  of  love  for  man,  and  always  doing 
for  him  more  than  is  strictly  necessary,  gave  him  from  the  be- 
ginning a  deposit  of  religious  truths,  which  can  be  said  to  be 
anterior  to  reflection,  in  the  tense  that  man  had  not  yet  used 
his  reason  to  reflect  on  them  ;  and  thus  the  words  of  the  Got- 
tingen  Professor  expresses  a  fact,  extremely  important  for  us, 
since  they  give  to  divine  revelation  a  place  assigned  to  it,  we 
may  say,  historically.  It  is  not  named,  it  is  true,  but  it  is 
evidently  supposed  in  the  words  above"  quoted. 

As  Greece  is  undoubtedly  the  country  where  philosophical 
systems  have  most  flourished,  as  subtlety  of  reasoning  was 
there  the  peculiar  character  of  the  people — as  no  metaphysical 
subject,  indeed,  can  be  adequately  investigated  without  a  thor- 
ough acquaintance  with  what  the  Greeks  have  said  on  the  mat- 
ter— it  becomes  of  extreme  importance  to  examine  if  the  mono- 
theism taught  by  Pythagoras,  Plato,  Socrates,  and  so  many 
others,  was  merely  a  philosophical  conclusion,  or  if  it  was  not 
the  handing  down  of  primitive  doctrines  left  to  the  race  by 


284  GENTILISM. 

mystagogues,  as  th^y  were  called,  who  were  merely  the  chan- 
nel of  a  belief  revealed  to  the  first  men  by  the  God  "  who 
spoke  to  the  fathers."  And  this  question  is  more  important  in 
the  case  of  the  Hellenes  than  in  that  of  any  other  nation  of 
antiquity,  for  the  following  reasons  : 

If  there  is  one  country  where  the  doctrine  of  progress  ap- 
pears to  be  proved  by  actual  facts,  it  is  certainly  Greece.  We 
have  heard  .^Eschylus  describing  the  state  of  its  primitive  inhab- 
itants as  that  of  savages  living  in  caves,  without  the  senses  of 
sight  and  hearing,  unable  to  discern  the  difference  of  seasons, 
etc. ;  and  we  see  them,  in  the  course  of  centuries,  reaching 
the  highest  civilization  and  culture,  and  proving,  rationally 
and  metaphysically,  the  existence  of  a  Supreme  God  and  the 
immortality  of  the  human  soul.  We  must  endeavor  to  show 
that  this  "  progress  "  was  not  really  of  the  character  indicated ; 
that,  at  the  beginning  of  the  series,  humanity  possessed,  in 
fact,  all  the  truths  which  long  afterwards  appeared  to  have 
been  discovered  ;  and  that,  in  the  words  of  the  Professor  of 
Gottingen,  speaking  of  Greece,  "  There  never  yet  has  been, 
nor  can  there  be,  a  people  for  whom  the  reverence  paid  to  a 
superior  being  was  but  the  fruit  of  refined  philosophy." 

Did  the  Pelasgians,  and  after  them  the  Hellenes,  bring  noth- 
ing from  Central  Asia  where  they  had  left  such  heaven-taught 
.ancestors  ?  or  did  these  two  migrating  armies  lose  entirely,  in 
the  hardships  of  the  way,  the  traditions  and  belief  handed 
down  to  them  ? 

Cadmus,  it  is  said,  brought  the  first  alphabet  to  Greece,  and 
he  was  a  Phoenician,  and  established  himself  in  Baeotia.  The 
Pelasgians  dwelt  chiefly  in  Thrace  and  Thessaly,  far  from  the 
land  adopted  by  Cadmus,  and  do  not  appear  to  have  profited 
by  the  boon  which  he  brought  to  Greece.  They  may,  how- 
ever, have  had  an  alphabet  of  their  own,  and,  if  so,  probably 
they  had  brought  it  from  Asia.  Yet  no  Pelasgian  inscription, 
that  we  know  of,  has  been  discovered.  How  can  we  know 


RELiGioisr  rSr  PELASGIC  GEEECE.  285 

•what  were  their  religious  ideas  ?  Herodotus,  who  had  heard 
it  from  the  priests  of  Dodona  in  Thessaly,  affirms  that  they  did 
not  worship  at  first  individual  gods,  but  merely  superior  beings, 
without  names,  whom  they  called  "  Theoi ;"  and  Thrace  and 
Thessaly  was  precisely  the  country  where  Orpheus  flourished. 
He  must  have  been  one  of  them.  "We  are  confirmed  in  that 
supposition  hy  the  ^oavov,  or  Divine  Image  preserved  to  this 
day,  and  sculptured  by  Pelasgic  hands  thousands  of  years  ago. 
The  great  question,  for  us,  therefore,  is  merely,  "Who  was  Or- 
pheus ?  and  did  Pythagoras,  and  Plato,  and  other  philosophers 
of  the  same  school  receive  anything  from  him  ?  and  had  the 
doctrine  of  Orpheus  any  analogy  with  that  of  Central  Asia  ? 


IY. 

We  have  all  heard  what  the  fable  relates  of  Orpheus,  the 
son  of  Apollo  and  Calliope,  the  great  inventor  of  harmony, 
on  whom  Apollo,  his  father,  bestowed  the  gift  of  the  lyre ;  to 
whose  songs  men  and  beasts,  the  birds  of  the  air  and  the  fishes 
of  the  sea,  nay,  the  trees  and  the  rocks,  were  not  insensible ; 
who  accompanied  the  Argonauts  in  their  expeditions,  and 
secured  their  success  by  lulling  monsters  to  sleep,  and  check- 
ing overhanging  rocks  in  their  impetuous  fall ;  who  finally 
brought  back  Euridice  from  the  lower  regions,  and,  at  last, 
perished,  miserably  torn  to  pieces  by  the  Menades. 

But  here,  as  usual,  Hellenic  imagination  has  buried  the  prim- 
itive myth  under  such  richness  of  exaggerated  details,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  separate  the  wheat  from  the  chaff,  and  the 
whole  of  it  deserves  to  be  rejected.  It  is  worthy  of  note,  how-  , 
ever,  that  Suidas  pretends  that  Orpheus  was  not  a  single  indi- 
vidual, but  that  the  deeds  of  several  heroes  were  attributed  to 
.one,  as  was  frequently  the  case  among  the  ancients.  And  it  is 
probable,  in  our  opinion,  that  they  were  all  of  them  Pelasgians, 


286  GENTILISJf. 

that  is  to  say,  belonged  to  the  first  emigration  of  Javans  from 
Central  Asia.  One  only  of  them,  it  is  true,  seems  to  have  had 
the  name  of  Orpheus  whilst  living ;  for  modern  Sanscrit 
scholars  think  they  find  him  mentioned  in  the  Yedas  under  the 
name  of  Arbhu,  whose  pronunciation  comes  very  near  to  that 
of  Orpheu  •  other  orientalists  had,  long  ago,  pointed  out  that 
Arif,  in  Arabic,  means  a  learned  man,  a  sa/vant  (Hoffmann, 
•  Lex.  Univ).  The  coincidence  is  remarkable,  although  the  Ara- 
bic, a  Semitic  tongue,  seems  to  have  few  common  features  with 
the  Sanscrit.  All  this,  nevertheless,  points  out  to  the  East  as 
the  primitive  country  of  the  initiator  of  the  Greeks  in  religious 
doctrines  and  mysteries,  for  such  was  always  Orpheus  thought 
to  be. 

It  is  time,  the  opinion  of  Aristotle  that  Orpheus  never  ex- 
isted, and  that  the  doctrines  attributed  to  him  were  not  so 
ancient  as  was  pretended,  has  been  admitted  by  modern  writers 
of  note.  Yet  it  must  be  said  that  Aristotle  was.  the  only  one 
of  the  ancients  who  thought  so.  All  the  others,  without  ex- 
ception, believed  in  the  existence  of  the  celebrated  Thracian 
mystagogue,  and  thought  him  as  great  in  religious  inspiration, 
as  mythology  made  him  in  strange  adventures  and  artistic 
gifts.  And  this  opinion  of  the  ancients  was  shared  by  the 
Fathers  of  the  Church  of  the  first  centuries.  So  that  around 
the  name  of  Orpheus  we  see  the  same  ideas  gather  in  Greece, 
which  we  have  already  remarked  to  have  gathered  in  Egypt 
around  that  of  Hermes.  He  was  said  to  be  a  divine  bard  in 
the  service  of  Zagreus,  the  horned  child  of  Zeus  and  Persep- 
hone— a  kind  of  mystic  Dionysus  half  buried  in  obscurity.  He 
was  not  only  the  first  to  use  the  lyre,  but  he  had  initiated  the 
men  of  his  time  and  country  into  the  rites  of  expiation,  teach- 
ing them  how  to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  gods ;  and  he  had 
explained  to  them  the  art  of  divination,  as  well  as  the  art  of 
letters  and  of  poetry.  According  to  Pausanias  (in  Boaot.),  he 
was  the  first  to  teach  a  whole  system  of  universal  theology ;  he 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GKEECE.  287 

had  written  on  the  reciprocal  action  of  the  elements',  on  the 
force  of  love  (or  of  attraction)  in  natural  things,  on  the  ob- 
servation of  auguries,  on  the  interpretation  of  dreams,  on  signs 
and  wonders,  how  to  conjure  their  fatal  prognostications. 

Lactantius  (Divine  Institutes]  called  him  "  the  most  ancient 
of  the  poets,"  and  thought  that  "he  spoke  of  the  true  and  . 
great  God  as  the  first  born  (npu-oyovov).  He  also  said  that 
Orpheus  "called  God  Thanes  (0av?/ra)." — the  appearer — be- 
cause when  as  yet  there  was  nothing,  He  first  appeared  and 
came  forth  from  the  infinite."  A  doctrine  evidently  Yedic  as 
well  as  Egyptian. 

When  we  stated  that  Orpheus  was,  like  Hercules,  a  type  to 
which  many  events  of  particular  lives  were  referred,  we  could 
not  corroborate  our  assertion  by  any  facts,  as  things  and  men 
are  necessarily  confused  and  mixed  together  in  so  high  an  an- 
tiquity. Yet  a .  coincidence,  remarkable  certainly  in  many 
points  of  view,  comes  here  to  our  rescue,  and  deserves  to  be 
noted.  The  name  of  Orpheus,  in  ancient  writers,  is  nearly 
always  accompanied  with  two  other  names  more  obscure  yet 
than  his  own  :  those  of  Musaeus  and  Linus.  Who  were  these  ? 
They  must  have  belonged  to  the  same  age,  although  some 
critics  doubt  if  they  were  not  posterior  to  Homer.  The  mass 
of  evidence,  however,  is  against  this  last  opinion.  Musseus  is 
said  to  have  been  an  Athenian,  Linus  a  Theban.  They  were 
not  certainly  from  Thrace,  like  Orpheus ;  but  at  the  time,  all  . 
Greece,  as  well  as  the  circumjacent  countries,  was  Pelasgic. 
We  know  very  little  of  Musaeus,  and  less  yet  of  Linus.  Diogenes 
Laertius,  however,  has  preserved  of  both  a  short  fragment  of 
some  importance.  He  asserts  that  Musaeus  had  said :  "  g£  evbq 
ra  -ndvra  yeviodai,  Kal  h$  ravrbv  dvaXveoOai"  namely  :  "  that 
from  One  all  things  had  proceeded ;  and  into  the  same  One  all 
should  be  resolved  or  return."  Sir  William  Jones  would  call 
this  the  substance  of  the  Hindoo  gayatri.  As  to  Linus,  Laertius 

savs  that,  having  written  a  book  on  the  generation  of  animals 
20 


288  GENTILISM. 

and  plants,  he  placed  at  the  head  of  it  the  following  line  : 
Hv  TTore  rot  xpovog  ovrog  iv  oi  dfia  ndvr'  i7re<j>vK£i.  "  There  was 
a  time  when  at  once  all  things  were  created."  This  refers 
evidently  to  the  "  sleep  and  dream  of  Brahma  "  when  all  crea- 
tion suddenly  appeared. 

To  come  back  to  Orpheus  himself,  we  have  no  doubt  that  it 
would  make  a  good  size  volume,  if  all  the  fragments  attributed  to 
him  by  the  Fathers  of  the  three  or  four  first  centuries  were  col- 
lected together  and  printed  with  a  few  pages  of  comment.  But 
it  is  objected  that  the  "  enormous  Orphic  literature."  which  re- 
tained its  ancient  authority  as  far  down  as  the  last  generation, 
that  is  to  say,  thirty  years  ago,  has  been  "  irrefutably  proved  to 
be,  in  its  main  bulk,  as  far  as  it  has  survived  the  production  of 
those  very  third  and  fourth  centuries,  raised  upon  a  few  scanty, 
primitive  snatches."  We  must,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the 
discussion,  make"  some  remarks  on  this  assertion,  and  show  that 
it  is  of  a  far  too  sweeping  character,  and  that  it  leads  to  an 
altogether  false  conclusion. 

Our  readers  will  remember  that  the  very  same  objection  was 
raised  against  the  Hermetic  books,  and  that  long  ago  the  right 
answer  to  it  has  been  given,  namely :  if  the  books  published 
under  the  name  of  Hermes  by  Neoplatonic,  and  Christian 
authors,  were  not  really  the  production  of  Thoth,  yet  they  con- 
tained really  his  ideas — dogas •  The  same  answer  precisely  can 
be  given  here.  But  how  do  we  know  that  they  were,  in  the 
present  case,  the  ideas  of  Orpheus  ?  By  a  very  simple  process. 
Those  who  published  that  "  enormous  Orphic  literature  "  in  the 
third  and  fourth  centuries,  knew,  certainly,  absolutely  nothing 
of  Hindoo  lore  and  Yedic  philosophy  and  religion ;  and  if  they 
had  some  idea  of  Egyptian  cosmogony,  they  did  not  perceive 
its  connection  with  the  Orphic  literature  which  they  published. 
Yet  what  was  then  written  under  the  name  of  Orpheus  is  full 
of  both  Indian  and  Egyptian  ideas,  showing  the  almost  com- 
plete identity  of  both.  It  must,  therefore,  have  been  origin- 


KELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GEEECE.  289 

ally  derived  from  a  source  connected  with  Asia  or  Africa,  as 
Orpheus — or,  if  our  readers  prefer — as  Pelasgic  writers — must 
certainly  have  been,  if  the  labors  of  modern  Sanscrit  scholars, 
particularly  Max  Miiller,  have  not  been  in  vain.  And  it  is  to 
be  remarked  that  the  authors  of  the  "  imposture"  under  discus- 
sion, if  it  deserves  so  harsh  a  name,  were  precisely  the  same 
who  had  also  circulated  with  such  a  success  an  "  enormous  Her- 
metic literature  "  in  the  same  countries,  namely :  both  Neopla- 
tonic  philosophers  and  Christian  apologists. 

To  prove  our  assertion,  our  readers  need  not  be  afraid  that 
we  shall  launch  into  a  sea  of  erudition,  and  quote  a  long,  dry 
series  of  passages  from  Greek  and  Latin  authors.  AVe  may  be 
satisfied  with  two  of  them,  which,  however,  may  be  regarded 
as  an  epitome  of  all.  Our  authorities  shall  be  St.  Clement  of 
Alexandria  for  the  Greeks,  and  Lactantius  for  the  Latins,  both 
unexceptionable  in  their  way.  The  first  is  undoubtedly  with 
Origen,  the  most  erudite  Greek  Father  of  the  Church  in  the 
third  century.  ^Fhe  same  may  be  said  of  Lactantius  on  the 
Latin  side. 

The  former  in  his  Stromata,  Book  v.,  after  having  quoted 
the  following  passage  of  one  of  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles, 
which  we  have  lost,  thus : 

"  When  the  whole  world  fades, 
And  vanished  all  the  abyss  of  ocean's  waves, 
And  earth  of  trees  is  bare ;  and  wrapt  in  flames, 
The  air  no  more  begets  the  winged  tribes ; 
Then  He,  who  all  destroyed,  shall  all  restore." 

.  .  -0_ 

— This  is  certainly  Vedic — he  adds :  "  We  shall  find  expres- 
sions similar  to  these  also  in  the  Orphic  hymns,  written  as  fol- 
lows : 

"For  having  hidden  all,  (He)  "brought  them  again 
To  gladsome  light,  forth  from  His  sacred  heart, 
Solicitous." 


290  GENTILISM. 

And  a  little  farther,  lie  himself  proceeds :  "  That  respecting 
God,  Orpheus  had  said  that  He  was  invisible,  and  that  He  was 
known  to  but  one,  a  Chaldean  by  race." 

"  But  in  great  heaven,  He  is  seated  firm 
Upon  a  throne  of  gold,  and  'iieath  His  feet 
The  earth.    .His  right  hand  round  the  ocean's  bound 
He  stretches  ;  and  the  hills'  foundations  shake 

To  the  centre  by  His  wrath 

He  all  celestial  is, 

And  all  things  finishes  upon  the  earth. 

He,  the  Beginning,  Middle  is,  and  End. 

But  Thee  I  dare  not  speak.    In  limbs 

And  mind  I  tremble.     He  rules  from  on  high." 

And  again : 

"Ruler  of  Ether,  Hades,  Sea  and  Land, 
Who  with  thy  bolts  Olympus'  strong  built  home 
Dost  shake.     Whom  demons  dread,  and  whom  the  throng 
Of  gods  do  fear 

O  deathless  one 

• 

Our  mother's  sire!  whose  wrath  makes  all  things  reel. 
....    Deathless  Immortal,  capable  of  being 
To  the  immortals  only  uttered !     Come, 

Greatest  of  gods,  with  Strong  Necessity. 
Dread,  invincible,  great,  deathless  one, 
Whom  Ether  crowns" 

And,  again,  with  more  appropriateness : 

"  One  Might,  the  great,  the  flaming  heavens,  was 
One  Deity.    All  things  one  Being  were,  in  whom 
All  these  revolve,  fire,  water,  and  the  earth." 

Finally,  after  having  quoted  a  passage  wherein  he  speaks  of 
one  God  in  the  finest  style  of  the  upanishads  of  the  Yedas,  and 
passed  gradually  to  another,  wherein  there  is  an  evident  trans- 
ition to  pantheism,  St.  Clement  gives  one  line  more,  which  can- 
not be  surpassed  by  the  harshest  doctrine  of  the  puranas  :  "  Nor 
is  there  any  other  (thing)  except  the  Great  King." 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GEEECE.  291 

We  have  underlined  several  passages  which  certainly  recall 
as  many  Hindoo  doctrines.  If,  in  the  above  quotations,  God 
is  called  "  the  deathless  One,  our  mother's  Sire,"  the  expression 
is  certainly  equivalent  to  the  Ermaic  doctrine  oi  the  "  "World 
being  the  Son  of  God,  and  the  Second  God,"  and  to  the 
Vedic  teaching  of  "  creation  emanating  from  the  sleeping 
Brahma." 

Many  more  passages  of  the  same  kind  could  be  adduced, 
collected  by  Cudworth  in  his  "  Systema  Intellectuale ;"  but  we 
have  promised  to  confine  ourselves  to  quotations  of  St.  Clement 
of  Alexandria  among  the  Greek  Fathers.  A  few  passages  of 
Lactantius  will  stand  for  the  opinion  of  the  Latin  Doctors. 
Cudworth  did  not  see  their  Indian  and  Egyptian  analogies. 

In  the  first  book  of  the  "  Divine  Institutes,"  Chap,  v.,  we 
find  a  passage  attributed  to  Orpheus,  which  seems  an  exact 
reproduction  of  many  texts  out  of  the  dialogue  "Asclepius," 
among  the  writings  of  Hermes  :  "  Orpheus  ....  speaks  of  the 
true  and  great  God  as  the  first-born  (Trpwroyovc^),  because 
nothing  was  ever  produced  before  Him,  but  all  things  sprung 
from  Him.  He  also  calls  him  Phanes,  the  appearer,  because 
when,  as  yet,  there  was  nothing,  He  first  appeared  and  came 
forth  from  the  infinite.  And  since  he  (Orpheus)  was  unable 
to  conceive  in  his  mind  the  origin  and  nature  of  this  Being, 
he  said  that  He  was  born  from  the  boundless  air :  '  The  first- 
born Phaeton,  son  of  the  extended  air.'  He  affirms  that  this 
Being  is  the  parent  of  all  the  gods,  on  whose  account  He 
framed  the  heavens,  and  provided  for  his  children,  that  they 
might  have  a  habitation  and  place  of  abode  in  common  ;  '  He 
built  for  immortals  an  imperishable  home.' " 

Ko  one  will,  we  hope,  deny  that  this  theology,  which  is,  of 
course,  erroneous,  is  yet  very  superior  to  the  celebrated  myth- 
ology whidh  prevailed  during  the  "  enlightened "  period  of 
Greece,  and  that,  consequently,  the  "  progress  "  in  that  "  pro- 
gressive" land  was  far  from  an  improvement,  and  may  be 


292  GENTILISM. 

said  to  have  there  also,  on  the.  whole,  "  progressed "  back- 
wards. 

But,  unnecessary  as  we  think  it  to  quote  more  at  length 
what  the  Neo^)latonists  and  the  Christian  writers  of  the  third 
and  fourth  centuries  have  said  and  believed  of  the  writings  of 
Orpheus,  we  must  answer  the  objection  alluded  to  above, 
namely,  that  nothing  certain  can  be  said  about  it,  and  that  no 
sound  criticism  is  able  to  make  any  use  of  this  "  enormous 
Orphic  literature." 

In  the  time  of  Pythagoras,  if  not  even  before,  the  same  im- 
portance was  ascribed  to  a  certain  body  of  Orphic  doctrines,  as 
in  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  after  Christ,  although  the 
nature  of  the  doctrines  is  now  unknown.  But  they  could  not 
have  been  the  "  enormous  Orphic  literature,  which  has  been 
ascertained  to  have  been  the  production  of  these  very  third 
and  fourth  centuries  of  our  era,"  and  which,  consequently, 
could  not  have  ex'sted  at  the  time  of  Pythagoras.  To  Karl 
Ottfried  Miiller  we  owe  the  certain  knowledge  of  several  facts 
on  the  subject,  which  give  a  great  probability  to  our  own 
theory.  This  eminent  Hellenist  scholar  thought,  it  is  true,  that 
the  old  Orphic  literature  was,  "  like  Orpheus'  own  biography, 
the  darkest  point  in  the  entire  history  of  early  Greek  poetry ;" 
yet  he  established  clearly  the  fact  of  a  v£ry  "  early  literature 
of  that  kind."  He  showed  conclusively  that  a  universal  tradi- 
tion in  Greece  pointed  to  it.  Orpheus  formed  the  brightest 
link  of  a  whole  chain  of  poets  earlier  than  Hesiod  and  Homer  : 
Olen,  Linus,  Philammon,  Eumolpus,  Muso3us,  and  other  legen- 
dary singers  of  prehistoric  Greece.  Fragments  of  Orpheus' 
writings  were  current  in  old  Hellas ;  and  if  the  thought  of 
collecting  and  publishing  them  arose  only  in  the  age  of  the 
Peisistratidse,  the  same  is  true,  likewise,  of  the  Homeric  poems. 
•Onomacritus  undertook  the  task ;  and  a  remarkable  passage  of 
Herodotus  shows  that  "prophecies"  formed,  at  least,  a  part  of 
the  Orphic  legends.  "We  quote  from  ("  Polymnia,"  vi.) :  "  Ono* 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  293 

macritus  was  an  Athenian,  a  soothsayer,  and  dispenser  of  the 
oracles  of  Musoeus — a  branch  of  Orphic  lore.  The  Peisistratidse 
went  up  to  Susa  (with  him),  having  first  reconciled  their 
former  enmity.  For  Onomacritus  had  been  banished  from 
Athens  by  Hipparchus,  son  of  Peisistratus,  having  been  de- 
tected by  Lasus  the  Hermionian  in  the  very  act  of  interpolat- 
ing among  the  oracles  of  Musaeus,  one  importing  that  the 
islands  lying  off  Lemnos  would  disappear  beneath  the  sea  ; 
wherefore  Hipparchus  banished  him,  although  he  had  before 
been  very  familiar  with  him.  But  at  that  time,  having  gone 
up  (to  Susa)  with  them,  being  reconciled,  whenever  he  came 
into  the  presence  of  the  King  (Xjerxes),  as  the  Peisistratidae 
spoke  of  him  in  very  high  terms,  he  recited  some  of  the  oracles. 
If,  however,  there  were  among  these  oracles,  any  that  portended 
misfortunes  ^o  the  barbarians,  of  these  he  made  no  mention  ; 
but  selecting  such  as  were  most  favorable,  he  said  it  was  fated 
that  the  Hellespont  should  be  bridged  over  by  a  Persian,  de- 
scribing the  march.  Thus  he  continually  excited  the  king, 
rehearsing  oracles,  as  did  the  Peisistratidae  and  Aleuadae,  in 
support  of  their  opinions." 

This  passage  alone  would  suffice  to  prove  that,  long  before 
Herodotus,  there  were  poems,  hymns,  oracles,  attributed  to. 
Musaeus.  It  is  certain  now  that  Orpheus'  poems  formed  the 
best  part  of  the  collection.  If  Onomacritus,  the  editor,  could 
be  guilty  of  interpolating  those  ancient  writings,  there  were, 
at  the  time,  critics  who  could  find  out  the  literary  forgery ; 
and  the  forgery  itself  shows  the  real  existence  of  earlier  writ- 
ings, the  actual  subject  of  interpolation. 

The  nature  of  these  poems  is,  moreover,  revealed  yet  further 
by  the  well-established  relation  of  Orphic  and  Pythagorean  doc- 
trines and  associations.  Both  brotherhoods  of  Orpheus  and 
Pythagoras  continued  to  flourish  down  to  a  comparative  late 
age.  The  fragments  collected  by  Onomacritus  were  used  in  the 
reunions  and  festivities  of  both.  The  doctrine  of  metem- 


294  GENTILISM. 

psychosis  was  admitted  fully  in  both.  And  as  the  Pytha- 
goreans are  known  to  have  professed  opinions  on  the  subject 
of  the  Godhead  far  in  advance  of  their  polytheistic  age,  we 
do  not  see  how  the  same  could  be  denied  of  Orphic  doctrine. 
It  is  'true  that  the  Thracian  bard  is  strongly  suspected  of  hav- 
ing given  rise  to  the  subsequent  mythology  of  the  Greeks  ;  so 
that,  should  these  suspicions  be  founded,  Homer  and  Hesiod 
would  not  have  been  the  first  poets  "  to  give  names  to  the 
gods,"  as  Herodotus  thought.  But  it  is  known  that  the  pro- 
fession of  belief  in  one  Supreme  God  could  be  allied  in  those 
early  times  with  a  superstitious  leaning  towards  inferior  deities. 
The  Vedas  themselves  became  impregnated  with  monstrous 
errors,  which  gave  rise  to  the  degrading  polytheism  of  the 
actual  Hindoos.  Hence  originated,  as  we  have  before  stated, 
the  reform  originated  by  Zoroaster  in  Bactriana. 

The  most  remarkable  analogy  between  Orpheus  an4  Pytha- 
goras is  the  institution  of  mysteries  in  the  associations  they 
founded.  Orpheus,  whom  Pythagoras  merely  followed,  was, 
in  fact,  chiefly  a  mystagogue.  He  taught  men  to  believe  that 
expiation  was  required  by  sinful  human  nature,  and  initiation 
into  his  secret  rites  was  the  proper  means  of  expiation.  These 
•rites  he  was  said  to  have  brought  from  abroad,  probably  from 
Egypt;  and  he  was  thus  considered  by  many  as  the  real 
founder  in  Greece  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries.  Much  uncer- 
tainty prevails,  however,  on  this  subject,. in  spite  of  the  many 
researches  which  have  been  pursued  in  this  century  and  the 
last.  Nevertheless  it  seems  to  be  certain  that  the  Egyptian 
and  Greek  orgies  exerted,  at  first,  a  salutary  influence  on  mo- 
rality, by  giving  more  distinctness  to  the  dogma  of  the  soul's 
immortality ;  and,  for  many  ages,  men  imagined  they  could  not 
"  secure  their  salvation,"  as  we  should  say,  and  acquire  a  safe 
and  easy  conscience,  without  undergoing  the  process  of  initia- 
tion. "We  know,  it  is  true,  that  the  whole  of  these  mysterious 
ceremonials  degenerated  into  a  mass  of  corruption ;  and  the 


EELIGIOX    IN   PELASGIC    GREECE.  295 

Fathers  of  the  first  three  centuries,  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
chiefly,  spoke  with  due  emphasis  on  the  subject.  This  was  not, 
however,  the  -case  for  a  long  time,  and  the  only  objection 
Cicero  could  make  in  his  age  against  the  Elusinian  mys- 
teries, which  he  highly  praised,  was  their  celebration  at 
night,  on  account  of  the  moral  danger  incurred  by  women  and 
young  girls  in  the  promiscuous  crowd  of  people  admitted  to 
witness  the  exoteric  ceremonies.  But  it  is  clear  how  Orpheus 
contributed  powerfully  to  form  the  primitive  religion  of 
Greece  ;  and  how,  at  first,  that  religion  partook  of  a  character 
akin  to  that  of  eastern  and  southern  countries. 

Of  his  travelling  into  Egypt,  Diodorus  Siculus  speaks  posi- 
tively (Book  iv.,  Chap.  25) ;  and  the  passage  has  so  instructive 
a  bearing  on  our  present  argument,  that  we  think  we  cannot  do 
better  than  quote  it : 

"  Orpheus,  already  an  adept  in  science,  and  instructed  chiefly 
in  theological  lore,  went  into  Egypt,  where  he  increased  his 
stock  of  knowledge,  so  that  he  becajne  the  first  among  Gre- 
cians, in  point  of  ability,  in  expiatory  rites  and  theologipal 
science,  as  he  was  already  the  most  expert  in  poetry  and  music." 

And  in  Book  i.,  Chap.  23,  the  same  author  gives  some  more 
details  on  the  subject,  not  unimportant  to  the  subject  we  have 
in  hand : 

"Those  who  pretend  that  the  god  Osiris  — the  Greek 
Dionysus — was  born  at  Thebes  in  Boeotia  from  Jove  and 
Semele,  are  mistaken ;  for  it  is  in  Egypt  that  Orpheus  re- 
ceived himself  the  rites  of  initiation,  and  participated  in  the 
mysteries  of  Dionysus — Osiris  ;  and  being  friendly  to  the  race 
of  Cadmus  (settled  in  Boeotia),  he  transferred  there  the  history 
of  this  god,  and  the  rites  of  expiation  connected  with  his  mys- 
teries, in  order  to  please  them.  And  the  vulgar,  ignorant  of 
these  facts,  wished  merely  to  make  the  god  one  of  their  own 
race,  and  thus  rushed  to  be  initiated  in  ceremonies  which  they 
thought  were  native  to  their  country."  « 


296  GENTILISM. 

Of  the  prophetic  and  mantic  art  attributed  to  the  Thracian 
bard,  we  have  already  spoken ;  and  we  narrated  how  Onoma- 
critus  subsequently  tried  to  interpolate  the  Orphic  pro- 
phecies and  was  punished  for  it.  This  establishes  a  new  an- 
alogy between  Orpheus  and  the  Egyptian  Hermes,  whose  books 
contained  likewise  predictions,  one  of  which  announcing  that, 
"  at  some  future  day,  the  bones  of  martyrs  would  take  posses- 
sion of  the  empty  temples  consecrated  at  first  to  the  Egyptian 
gods,"  was  believed  by  St.  Augustine  to  have  been  a  true  pro- 
phecy, uttered  by  the  genius  of  evil  against  its  own  inclina- 
tion. 

The  conclusion,  at  all  events,  to  be  drawn  from  the  facts 
thus  ascertained  by  Karl  Ottfried  Miiller  is*,  that  the  Orphic 
books  are  far  earlier  than  the  third  and  fourth  centuries  of  our 
era ;  and  that,  long  previous  to  the  absurd  mythology  of  the 
bright  period  of  Greece,  a  religious  system  existed  in  the  coun- 
try which  the  noble  minds  of  Pythagoras  and  his  associated 
brethren  made  the  groundwork  of  their  own  worship  and  philo- 
sophy. Unfortunately,  that  system  merged  very  eaily  in  pan- 
theism, and  tainted  the  highest  conceptions  of  the  oldest  sages 
with  the  all-absorbing  errors  of  the  "  Great  Pan  " — the  Great- 
All.  But  this  is  another  resemblance  with  both  Hindostan  and 
Egypt,  and  a  new  proof  of  an  ancient  connection  between  the 
three  countries.  And  it  supplies  another  confirmatory  testi- 
mony of  the  statement  of  the  Book  of  Wisdom  so  often  al- 
luded to. 

In  the  time  of  Plato  anthropomorphist  mythology  was  so  prev- 
alent, that  even  this,  great  man  could  scarcely  understand  the 
archaic  language  of  Orpheus,  of  whom  he  speaks  frequently. 
He  quotes  him  in  the  "  Cratylus"  as  one  of  the  first  inventors  of 
the  "  generation  of  the  gods  "  out  of  the  Ocean.  In  "  Ion  "  he 
treats  chiefly  of  his  talent  as  a  musician  and  a  rhapsodist.  In 
"  The  Laws  "  (Book  viii.,  Chap.  1),-  when  it  is  question  of  the 
education  of  youth,  he  deprecates  the  -custom  of  having  the 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  297 

works  of  all  sorts  of  poets  placed  in  their  hands,  to  be  learned 
by  heart  and  sung.  He  requires  a  strict  choice  to  be  made  of 
such  poetic  compositions ;  and  he  would  like  that  only  sacred 
poems,  dedicated  to  the  gods,  scattering  justly  blame  and 
praise,  with  moderation,  on  the  actions  of  men — such  as  those 
of  Thamyris  and  Orpheus — should  b.e  used  for  such  a  holy  pur- 
pose as  educating  the  young.  Every  one  knows  how,  in  "  The 
Republic"  (Book  iii.,  Chap.  9),  he  refuses  to. admit  those 
authors  who  excite  the  interest  of  readers  for  what  is  evil  as 
well  as  for  what  is  good.  "  The  author,"  he  says,  "  who  is 
able  by  his  talent  to  become  everything  and  picture  everything, 
if  he  was  to  come  to  our  State,  and  wish  to  circulate  among  us 
his  poems,  we  should  respect  him  as  a  wonderful  and  pleasant 
person,  but  should  refuse  to  allow  him  to  stay  with  us  ;  and, . 
taking  him  by  the  hand,  we  should  lead  him  on  his  way  to 
some  other  city,  after  having  poured  scented  oil  on  his  head, 
and  crowned  him  with  a  chaplet  of  flowers." 

Commentators  have  agreed  in  considering  Homer  himself  to 
have  been  the  poet  alluded  to.  But  about  Orpheus,  Plato,  as 
we  saw,  entertained  very  different  sentiments.  We  do  not 
know  if  it  was  from  the  Orphic  books,  or  from  the  conversa- 
tions he  certainly  had  with  Egyptian  priests,  that  the  friend  of 
Socrates  received  several  points  of  doctrine  contained  in  his 
celebrated  "  Timaeus ; "  one  in  particular,  adverted  to  in  sev- 
eral passages  of  the  dialogue,  but  expressed  with  emphasis  at 
its  close :  "Our  discourse  about  the  Universe  has  reached  its 
conclusion.  "We  have  seen  it  not  only  containing,  and  full  of, 
mortal  and  immortal  animals,  but  itself  forming  a  visible  ani- 
mal, embracing  things  perceived  by  our  signt,  a  sensible  god, 
image  of  the  intelligible,  the  greatest,  best,  and  most  perfect — 
this  one  only-begotten  Cosmos."  This,  our  readers  know,  is 
purely  Egyptian,  and  a  somewhat  crude  repetition  of  a  much 
more  poetical  idea  of  the  Vedas.  Did  it  come,  we  repeat  again1, 
from  Orpheus?  Plato  has  not  positively  said  where  he  bor- 


298 

rowed-  the  idea,  wliicli  certainly  contains  nothing  purely  Hel- 
lenic. 


Y. 


The  reader  will  not  fail  to  have  observed  the  difficulties 
which  surround  the  question  under  consideration.  The  links 
which  connect  Greece  with  the  East  appear  so  often  entangled, 
confused,  and  even  broken,  that  the  elucidation  of  the  primitive 
religion  of  the  Greeks  seems  often  a  hopeless  task  ;  and  we 
ought  not  to  think  it  strange,  since  the  Hellenes  themselves 
perceived  it,  felt  it,  and  were  unable  to  account  for  it.  There 
is,  on  this  subject,  a  well-known  passage  in  the  "  Timaeus," 
often  quoted  in  part  by  modern  writers,  although  its  full  signifi- 
cance cannot  be  gathered  except  from  the  entire  passage.  It 
is  as  follows.  "We  give  the  far  too  literal  translation  of  Henry 
Davis,  in  Bonn's  edition :  . 

"  In  Egypt,  in  the  Delta,  at  the  summit  of  it,  is  the  Saitic 
nome  whose  chief  city  is  Sais  ....  It  has  a  presiding  divinity, . 
whose  name  in  Egyptian  is  Neiih,  which,  they  say,  corresponds 
with  the  Greek  Athene  ;  and  the  people  profess  to  be  great 
friends  of  the  Athenians  ....  Solon  said,  that,  on  his  arrival 
thither,  he  was  honorably  received ;  and  especially  on  his  in- 
quiring about  old  t'mes  of  those  priests  who  possessed  superior 
knowledge  in  such  matters*  he  perceived  that  neither  himsetf 
nor  any  of  the  Greeks  (so  to  speak),  had  any  antiquarian  knowl- 
edge at  all.  And  once  desirous  of  inducing  the  priests  to  nar- 
rate their  ancient  stories,  he  undertook  to  describe  those  events 
which  had  formerly  happened  among  us  in  days  of  yore — those 
about  the  first  Phoroneus  and  Niobe,  and  again  after  the  deluge 
of  Deucalion  and  Pyrrha  (as  described  by  the  mythologists)  .... 
paying  due  attention  to  the  different  ages  in  which  these  events 
are  said  to  have  occurred  —  on  which  one  of  the  oldest  priests 
exclaimed,  "  Solon,  Solon,  you  Greeks  are  always  children,  and 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC'  GREECE.  299 

aged  Greeks  there  are  none."  Solon,  on  hearing  this,  replied, 
"  How  can  you  say  this  ?"  To  whom  the  priest,  "  You  are 
youths  in  intelligence;  for  you  hold  no  ancient  opinions  de- 
rived from  remote  tradition,  nor  any  system  of  discipline  that 
can  boast  of  a  hoary  old  age :  and  the  cause  of  this  is  the  mul- 
titude and  variety  of  destructions  that  have  been,  and  will  be, 
undergone  by  the  human  race  ;  the  greater  indeed  arising  from 
fire  and  water,  others  of  less  importance  from  ten  thousand 
other  contingencies.  The  story,  for  instance,  that  is  current 
among  you,  that  Phaeton,  the  offspring  of  the  Sun,  attempting 
to  drive  his  father's  chariot,  and  not  being  able  to  keep  the 
right  track,  burnt  up  the  surface  of  the  earth,  and  perished 
himself,  ....  in  point  of  fact  refers  to  a  declination  of  the 
heavenly  bodies  revolving  round  the  earth,  and  indicates  that, 
at  certain  long  intervals  of  time,  the  earth's  surface  is  de- 
stroyed by  mighty  fires.  When  this  occurs,  then  those  who 
dwell  either  on  mountains,  or  in  lofty  and  dry  places,  perish  in 
greater  numbers  than  those  dwelling  near  rivers,  or  on  the  sea- 
shore :  whereas,  to  us  the  Nile  is  not  only  our  safeguard  from 
all  other  troubles,  but  liberates  and  preserves  us  also  from  this 
in  particular.  And,  again,  when  the  gods,  to  purify  the  earth, 
deluge  its  surface  with  water,  then  the  herdsmen  and  shepherds 
on  the  mountains  are  preserved  in  safety,  while  the  inhabitants 
of  your  cities  are  hurried  away  to  the  sea  by  the  impetuosity 
of  the  rivers  ....  Besides  all  the  noble,  great,  or  otherwise 
distinguished  achievements,  performed  either  by  ourselves,  or 
by  you,  or  elsewhere,  of  which  we  have  heard  the  report — all 
these  have  been  engraven  in  our  temples  in  very  remote  times, 
and  preserved  to  the  present  day ;  while  on  the  contrary,  with 
you  and  all  other  nations,  they  are  only  just  committed  to  writ- 
ing, and  all  other  modes  of  transmission  which  states  require 
— when  again,  at  the  usual  period,  a  current  from  heaven 
rushes  on  them  like  a  pestilence,  and  leaves  the  survivors 
among  you  destitute  of  literary  annals  ....  and  thus  you  be- 


300  GENTILISM. 

come  young  again  as  at  first,  knowing  nothing  of  the  events  of 
ancient  times,  either  in  our  country  or  yours." 

The  old  Egyptian  priest  had  certainly  stated  a  most  evident 
fact :  "  That  the  Greeks  held  no  ancient  opinions  derived  from 
remote  traditions."  They  were  not  a  traditional  people,  but 
rationalistic.  The  reason,  he  gave  for  this  will  scarcely  satisfy 
the  modern  reader ;  yet  owing  to  its  quaintness  and  plausibility 
for  an  Egyptian,  we  have  given  it  here  a  place.  But  if  such 
was  really  the  case  in  the  early  age  of  Solon — this  absence  of 
traditions — how  much  more  was  it  true  of  more  recent  times  ? 
In  the  time  of  Plato,  everything  ancient,  we  may  say,  had  van- 
ished ;  or  only  precious  fragments  handed  down  by  the  Orphic 
School  and  the  Pythagorean  Society  remained,  whose  meaning 
was  altogether  forgotten,  buried  as  it  was  beneath  the  rubbish 
of  mythology.  Rubbish  we  mean,  not  in  a  literary  point  of 
view ;  but  as  compared  with  the  sublime,  rational,  and  consist- 
ent scheme  of  revealed  religion.  As  a  product  of  the  imagina- 
tion, it  was  anything  but  rubbish.  To  the  Greeks,  the  mythol- 
ogy born  of  the  imagination  of  Homer  had  such  a  fascinating 
power,  that  they  were  bound  fast  in  the  brilliant  folds  of  that 
splendid  superstition.  The  witchery  of.it  is  so  charming  that 
even  Christian  writers  have  felt  its  power ;  and  we  shall  pres- 
ently find  men  of  note  speaking  of  it  as  the  true  cause  of  all 
Greek  culture,  and  shall  have  to  reply  to  their  arguments. 

Meanwhile,  we  have  a  few  more  considerations  to  urge  on  the 
part  of  our  subject  which  has  already  for  some  time  occupied 
our  attention. 

There  is  no  doubt,  that  if  it  is  enveloped  yet  in  still  greater 
obscurity  to  us  than  to  the  Hellenes  of  the  age  of  Plato  and 
even  of  Solon,  nevertheless,  the  ingenuity,  deep  researches,  and 
profound  criticism  of  modern  investigators,  such  as  Karl  Ott- 
fried  Miiller,  have  thrown  on  those  primitive  times  a  light 
which  they  did  not  possess.  We  are,  at  least,  obliged  to  admit, 
for  that  early  period,  a  real  superiority  in  point  of  strong  intel- 


BELIGIOX    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  301 

lect  and  morality  over  the  ages  that  followed.  Religion,  man- 
ners, domestic  institutions  present  many  traits  similar  to  those 
of  India  and  ancient  Egypt.  The  Pelasgians  were,  above  all, 
agriculturists,  as  were  the  early  Hindoos.  They  spread,  like 
their  progenitors,  over  continents,  an.d  were  not  much  addicted 
to  the  sea,  which  they  merely  crossed  for  the  purpose  of  colo- 
nization. They  had  the  Yedic  "  Arbhu"  (Orpheus)  for  their 
initiator  in  the  rites  of  expiation,  as  the  Hindoos  had  the 
Brahmins  for  a  like  initiation  as  described  in  the  Institutes  of 
Menu.  We  have  seen  his  "  sacred  image,"  (Orpheus')  sculptured 
by  Pelasgic  hands  and  preserved  to  our  very  days.  "Wherever 
they  spread,  the  Hellenic  race,  which  replaces  them,  spread 
likewise :  In  Asia  Minor,  in  Southern  Italy,  in  the  territories 
around  the  Euxine,  and  even  north  of  it,  as  well  as  in  Attica, 
Boeotia,  and  the  whole  of  Hellas.  Max  Miiller,  and  all  modern 
Sanscrit  scholars,  tell  us  that  they  came  from  Central  Asia, 
that  they  are  the  Javanas  of  the  Yedic  literature,  and  we  say 
that  they  are  the  Javans  of  Genesis.  They  must,  therefore, 
have  brought  to  their  new  country  the  idea  of  "  Brahma " 
(neuter),  indistinct,  it  is  true,  and  scarcely  to  be  recognized, 
owing  to  the  incredible  hardship  of  their  migration ;  yet  finally 
taking  a  shape,  announced  by  Orpheus  as  the  "  Deathless  One," 
"  our  mother's  sire,"  etc.,  who,  in  Hellenic  times,  became 
Zeus,  not  the  son  of  Chronos,  but  the  Zeus  anterior  to  mythol- 
ogy, of  whom  Plato  spoke  thus  in  his  "  Oratylus " :  "In 
reality  the  name  of  Zeus  is,  as  it  were,  a  sentence ;  and  persons 
dividing  it  into  two  parts,  some  of  us  make  use  of  one  part, 
and  some  of  another ;  for  some  call  him  ZT/V,  and  some  Aiq. 
But  these  parts  united  into  one,  exhibit  the  nature  of  the 
God,  which,  as  we  have  said,  a  name  ought  and  should  be  able 
to  do.  For  there  is  no  one  who  is  more  the  cause  of  living 
(Z?)v),  both  to  us  and  everything  else,  than  He  who  is  the 
Ruler  and  King  of  all.  It  follows,  therefore,  that  this  God  is 
rightly  named,  through  whom  life  is  present  to  all  living  beings." 


302  GE2fTILISM. 

The  -translator  of  the  dialogue,  George  Burges,  adds  in  a 
note  :  "  From  this  passage  of  Plato  were  perhaps  derived  the 
Pseudo-Orphic  verses,  quoted  by  Joannes  Diaconus,  etc  :  'Zeus 
is  the  beginning  of  all  things.  For  Zeus  has  given  and  gene- 
rated animals,  and  men  call  him  Z?)v,  and  also  Ai<;\  because 
all  things  were  fabricated  through  Him  ;  and  He  is  the  one 
Father  of  all  things,  both  beasts  and  men.'  " 

On  this  we  remark,  and  the  investigation  of  this  passage  is 
most  important  : 

1st.  The  translation  here  given  is  scarcely  pointed  enough  ; 
the  verses  of  the  Pseudo-Orphic  hymn  are  in  Greek  : 


"E<mi>  dr)  ndvruv  apx?)  Zevg  ,  Zevg  yap 

Zoia  T'  eylvvrjoev  •nal  Zfjv'  avrov  K 

Kal  Aia  r'r/d',  on  6rj  6ia  TOVTOV  atravra  TKTVKTUI. 

El$  de  TTdTrfp  ovTog  TTCIVTW,  6r)p&v  re 


41  Zeus  is  the  beginning  of  all  things.     For  Zeus  has  given, 
And  generated  living  beings  ;  thus  men  call  him  Zriv. 

They  call  Him  also  Atf,  since  through'Him  (6ta  TOVTOV)  all  things  are 

made. 
He  is  the  One  Father  of  all,  both  beasts  and  men." 

The  importance  of  these  corrections  is  obvious. 

2d.  We  cannot  understand  how  the  above-quoted  hymn  was 
perhaps  derived,  as  Mr.  Burges  remarks,  from  the  previous 
passage  of  Plato.  We  think,  rather,  that  the  text  of  the  great 
and  good  friend  of  Socrates  was  positively  derived  from  this 
very  Orphic  hymn.  And  for  the  following  reaspns  :  Plato, 
after  having  said  that  "  the  name  of  Zeus  is  'a  sentence,  and 
people  dividing  it  into  two  parts,  some  made  use  of  one 
part  and  called  him  ZT?I>,  and  some  of  another,  and  call  him 
Ai$"  seems  to  announce  that  he  will  give  the  meaning  of  both, 
because  "these  parts  united  into  one,  exhibit  the  nature  of 
the  God."  Yet  he  quite  forgets  to  explain  the  second  part,  Alq. 
He  is  diffuse  on  the  first,  Zqv  ;  and,  on  reading  his  "  Cratylus," 


RELIGION   IN   PELASGIC   GREECE.  303 

the  reader  is  surprised  to  find,  that,  in  what  follows,  not  a  word 
is  said  of  the  meaning  of  the  second :  Aiq.  But,  among  the 
immense  number  of  fragments  of  ancient  lore,  kept  and  pre- 
served by  more  modern  writers,  a  poem  of  Orpheus  is  found, 
quoted  by  Joannes  Diaconus,  in  which  the  same  object  is 
professed,  namely :  to  explain  the  meaning  of  Zeus ;  and  the 
omission  of  Plato  is  fully  supplied  by  a  precious  line  giving  the 
meaning  of  Aig.  What  can  be  the  conclusion  for  a  critic  ? 
This,  certainly :  Plato  shows  everywhere  a  very  slight  acquaint- 
ance with  the  true  Orpheus,  although  he  often  mentions  his 
name.  He  meets,  however,  with  a  few  words  which  strike  him ; 
they  are  incomplete,  and,  as  he  never  had  the  good  fortune  to 
see  the  whole  poem  of  the  old  bard,  he  comments  on  these  few 
words.  But,  as  the  line  including  the  explanation  of  the  mean- 
ing of  Ai<;  is  wanting  in  the  snatch  which  he  possesses,  he  does 
not  dare,  through  religious  feeling,  to  furnish  an  interpretation 
of  his  own.  Had  it  not  been  the  name  of  Zeus,  he  might 
have  thought  himself  competent,  of  his  own  authority,  to  ex- 
plain it.  Had  it  been  the  name  of  some  inferior  god,  he  might 
have  treated  the  subject  with  levity ;  as  he  did,  directly  after, 
in  the  same  dialogue,  when  it  was  question  only  of  the  names 
of  Hera,  of  Poseidon,  of  Pluto,  and  of  all  the  others,  on  which 
he  took  an  evident  delight  in  pouring  ridicule  and  contempt. 
But  he  would  have  considered  it  sacrilegious  to  speak  in  the 
same  strain  of  "  Him  who  is  the  Ruler  and  King  of  all,"  as  he 
expressed  it.  Thus  the  omission  in  Plato,  shows  him,  in  our 
opinion,  to  have  lived  at  a  later  period  than  the  Orphic  verses 
which  he  alludes  to  in  part. 

3d.  Plato,  in  explaining  the  name'  of  Zeus,  and  discussing 
the  first  part  of  it,  Z?)i>,  says  only  that  He  is  thus  called,  be- 
cause "  through  Him  life  is  present  to  all  living  beings."  But 
the  Greek  of  Orpheus  has  a  much  stronger  meaning.  It  is, 
kyiwr\GK  rd  £wa, — he  generated  living  animals  /  and  we  say  that 

the  author  of  the  Orphic  verses  could  not  have  derived  this 
21 


304  GENTILISM. 

from  the  passage  of  Plato,  but  that,  more  probably,  Plato  took 
it  from  some  imperfect  copy  of  the  verses.  The  words  of  the 
founder  of  the  Academy  do  not  make  any  mention  of  "  gene- 
ration," but  merely  assert  that  Zeus  is  "present"  to  all  living 
beings.  No  interpreter  could  be  so  bold  as  to  introduce  the 
meaning  contained  in  iyevvrjae. 

Plato,  on  the  contrary,  in  the  supposition  that  he  possessed 
some  of  the  Orphic  lines,  had  a  strong  reason  for  toning  down 
their  expressions,  and  giving  them  an  Hellenic  aspect.  He  did 
so  by  the  phrase  he  used.  His  readers  could  not  possibly  have 
understood  the  direct  "generation"  of  the  visible  world  from 
the  supreme  and  immaterial  God ;  hence  he  had  to  bring  his 
words  to  the  intellectual  capacity  of  his  readers.  Orpheus, 
on  the  contrary,  had  the  whole  cosmogonic  system  of  Egypt, 
and  even  that  of  India,  in  support  of  his  meaning.  To  render 
this  clearer  still,  we  will  remind  our  readers  of  the  concluding 
passage  of  the  "  Timseus,"  quoted  above.  We  have  already 
remarked  on  it  that  Plato  certainly  took  the  idea  from  the 
Egyptians  —  the  whole  dialogue  is  supposed  to  express  the 
Egyptian  explanation  of  creation.  But  in  the  passage  alluded 
to,  which  is  certainly  one  of  the  strongest,  if  not  altogether  the 
strongest,  in  all  the  works  of  Plato,  as  redolent  altogether  of 
Oriental  opinion  and  imagery,  the  wise  Greek  philosopher  has 
considerably  altered  the  Egyptian  doctrine.  This  made  the 
"  visible  world  "  positively  "  the  son  "  of  the  Creator ;  Plato 
makes  it  only  its  "  image  "  (elitbc;).  And  if,  in  the  last  words 
of  the  passage,  he  calls  the  Cosmos  "  the  greatest,  best,  most 
perfect,  the  one  only-begotten  " — juovoysv^, — it  is  clear  that  the 
phrase  is  metaphorical,  because  the  writer  had  advertently 
avoided  the  only  word  which  could  have  made  it  literal, 
vibv — son, — which  is  the  correlative  of  \iovbytvr\. 

These  observations  supply  a  convincing  proof  that  many 
modern  mythologists  are  mistaken  in  establishing  an  essential 
distinction  between  the  Greek  Zeus  and  the  Roman  Jupiter. 


EELIGIOX    EST    PELASGIC    GREECE.  305 

"  It  is  only,"  they  say,  "  when  the  Romans  began  to  know  the 
religion  and  literature  of  Greece,  that  they  foolishly  sought  to 
identity  their  own  noble,  majestic,  and  gravely  upright  Jupiter 
with  the  slippery,  lustful,  and  immoral  Zeus  of  the  Greeks." 
We  answer  that  this  Zeus  was  the  god  of  the  degenerate  Hel- 
lenes, not  that  of  the  immediate  successors  of  the  Pelasgians.* 
There  is  no  doubt  that  the  original  Jupiter  of  the  Romans  was 
altogether  different  from  the  Zeus  of  subsequent  mythology. 
He  was,  as  Pluvius,  as  Tonans,  as  Fulminator,  as  Servator,  all- 
powerful  over  the  elements ;  He  was  all-knowing,  all-provid- 
ing, the  highest  and  the  best,  Optimus  Maximus.  As  such,  he 
could  not  be  guilty  of  the  crimes  insanely  attributed  to  h'm 
by  mythology.  Hence  the  idea  of  Jupiter  was  altogether  a 
moral  one,  and  he  was  properly  thought  to  ba  the  avenger  of 
those  vices  which  later  ages  were  to  condone  and  even  to  ren- 
der .attractive  by  making  them  the  ordinary  actions  of  their 
chief  god.  Thus  the  primitive  Jupiter  of  the  Romans  was 
really  the  Supreme,  the  Eternal,  the  Omnipotent.  But  such 
was  likewise  the  primitive  Zeus  of  the  Greeks.  From  whom 
did  the  Romans  receive  the  idea  of  their  great  Jupiter  ?  Un- 
doubtedly from  the  Etruscans,  those  Pelasgians  of  Italy.  And 
this  supposed  difference  between  Jupiter  and  Zeus  is  thus 
shown  to  have  been  merely  the  work  of  time,  and  the  effect  of 
ever-advancing  degeneracy,  ending  in  the  most  wretched  degra- 
dation. 

We  hope,  therefore,  that  we  have  established  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  reader,  that  the  Orphic  literature  cannot  truly  be 
called  pseudo  in  any  sense.  And  it  follows  from  this  that 
monotheism  appears  at  the  religious  origin  of  Greece,  affording 
thus  another  confirmation  of  the  remarkable  words  6f  Professor 
Heeren  :  "  It  would  be  difficult,  and  perhaps  impossible,  to  find 
a  nation  which  can  show  no  vestiges  of  religion ;  and  there 
never  yet  has  been,  nor  can  there  be,  a  nation  in  which  the 
reverence  for  a  superior  being  was  but  the  fruit  of  refined 


306  GENTILISM. 

philosophy."  For  religion  came  to  us  from  God  by  exterior 
revelation. 

There  is,  however,  yet  a  slight  qualification  to  proffer  of 
what  we  have  advanced.  If  we  have,  as  is  the  case,  really 
strong  reasons  for  believing  the  passage  in  question  to  be 
truly  Orphic  and  not  Pseudo-Orphic,  we  have  no  intention  of 
maintaining  that  the  "  phraseology  "  is  undoubtedly  the  work 
of  the  Thracian  bard.  "We  speak  only  of  the  sense  of  the 
passage.  The  "  verses  "  may  have  been  arranged  by  a  subse- 
quent "  literateur."  The  thoughts  have  the  redolence  of  the 
genuine  antique,  and  are  evidently  older  than  Plato.  This  is 
all  we  have  intended  to  assert. 

33ut  if  purity  of  religion  does  not  suppose  necessarily  a  great 
advance  in  knowledge  and  what  is  called  culture,  it  does  sup- 
pose, in  our  opinion,  a  primitive  revelation.  And  purity  of 
religion  is  altogether  incompatible  with  barbarism ;  and  the 
nations  which  have  received  such  an  incomparable  boon,  are 
necessarily  intelligent,  refined  in  feeling,  in  possession  of  a 
great  control  over  nature ;  in  fine,  truly  civilized.  But 
according  to  the  common  opinion,  the  Hellenes  of  the  heroic 
age  were  mere  barbarians.  The  Pelasgians,  especially,  who 
preceded  them,  were  uncouth  savages.  It  was,  as  they  say, 
"  the  age  of  Cyclops  and  Polyphemusses."  Homer  himself 
has  described  those  frightful  cannibals  of  Sicily  and  the  sur- 
rounding islands. 

We  assert  that,  however  general  such  an  opinion  may  be,  it 
is  an  altogether  mistaken  one ;  and  in  the  same  way  as  we 
have  established,  conclusively,  the  fact  that  the  Hindoos  of  the 
Yedic  times  were,  from  the  very  beginning,  a  great  and  refined 
race,  do  we  now  propose  to  demonstrate  that  the  original 
Hellenes — we  believe  them  to  have  been  Pelasgians — were  not, 
at  all  events,  savages,  but  were  far  advanced  in  social  life,  and 
endowed  with  noble  and  elevated  feelings,  although  remarkable 
for  their  truly  patriarchal  simplicity  and  unartificial  mode  of 


RELIGION    LN"    PELASGIC    GEEECE.  307 

living.  This  was  precisely  the  character  of  the  primitive  Hin- 
doos; and  we  ^ay  that  these  are  the  "notes"  of  "primitive 
man,"  wherever  documents  have  been  left  to  know  and  describe 
him. 

The  Pelasgians  have  left  after  them  no  traces .  whatever, 
except  huge  buildings  and  enormous  ruins,  in  the  opinion  of 
those  who  make  them  a  race  altogether  distinct  from  the  Hel- 
lenes. According  to  their  theory,  a  powerful  nation,  spread 
over  a  great  part  of  Europe,  besides  a  slice  of  Asia,  has  sud- 
denly disappeared  to  make  room  for  another,  without  any 
struggle,  at  least,  corresponding  with  the  magnitude  of  the 
event.  Is  it  probable  ?  Is  it  possible  ?  We  confess  that  we 
do  not  believe  it  is.  Those  who  do,  endeavor  to  establish 
their  point  by  a  reference -to  the  fact  of  the  disappearance  of 
many  nations  in  a  similar  manner.  They  argue  that,  even  in 
our  days,  the  phenomenon  is  still  manifesting  itself  in  many 
countries.  They  allude  evidently  to  the  Poles,  the  Turks  in 
Europe,  etc. ;  and,  in  the  Western  Hemisphere,  to  the  North 
American  Indians.  We  answer,  that  none  of  these  facts  can 
explain  the  disappearance  of  the  Pelasgiaus;  and  that  the 
whole  of  history,  ancient  and  modern,  may  be  ransacked  in 
vain  to  find  anything  similar. 

None  of  the  nations,  now  in  process  of  disappearance,  have 
been  reduced  to  their  actual  state  without  long  ages  of  a  pro- 
tracted struggle  well  known  to  history.  And  some  of  those 
named  have  not  yet  disappeared,  nor  are  likely  to  for  a  long 
time  to  come,  at  all  events.  We  defy  anyone  to  find  a  case' 
parallel  to  the  Pelasgic  phenomenon.  We  admit  that  a  race 
can  pass  gradually  into  another  by  a  true  process  of  assimila- 
tion. But  then  the  two  races  must  not  be  altogether  antago- 
nistic. And  when  this  happens  readily,  we  may  be  sure  that 
they  belonged  originally  to  the  same  stock,  which  was,  we 
imagine,  the  case  with  the  Pelasgians  and  the  Hellenes.  To 
speak,  therefore,  of  the  social  state  of  the  first — as  we  do  not 


308  GENTILISM. 

possess  any  direct  document  concerning  them — we  must  have 
recourse  to  the  early  documents  of  the  second.  Thus  the  ques- 
tion resolves  itself  into  an  investigation  of  the  heroic  age  of 
Greece.  We  assert  that  this  age  was  Pelasgic  as  well  as  Hel- 
lenic. Thus  also  thought  Homer,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  some- 
times makes  the  two  races  identical,  sometimes  seems  to  admit 
a  difference:  "We  remarked  likewise  that,  most  probably,  Or- 
pheus was  a  Pelasgic  Thracian  hero,  of  whom  we  yet  possess 
the  "  sacred  image,"  one  of  a  very  few  relics  of  Pelasgian  art.* 
We  pass  on,  therefore,  to  the  subject  of  Heroic  Greece. 

*  Few  authors  have  shown  as  much  industry  and  care  in  collecting  all 
the  passages  of  ancient  writers,  chiefly  of  Homer,  having  reference  to  the 
Pelasgians,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  did  in  his  "  Juventus  Mundi."  He  confirms 
the  general  opinion  entertained  of  the  race  with  respect  to  its  wandering 
habits,  to  its  agricultural  pursuits,  to  its  peaceful  disposition,  and  to  its 
extension  over  Greece,  Italy,  and  Asia  Minor.  Perhaps  objection  could 
be  taken  <o  the  total  want  of  warlike  spirit  ascribed  to  it;  inasmuch  as 
the  universal  test  adopted  by  the  Right  Hon.  author  to  determine  if  a 
given  tribe  was  Pelasgic  or  not,  is  «to  ascertain  if,  in  the  mention  made 
cfit  by  the  ancients,  it  was  unsuccessful  in  any  conflict;  this  being  a 
sure  .mark,  according  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  that  it  belonged  to  the  Pelasgic. 
But  as  we  are  chiefly  concerned  with  the  religious  leanings  of  the  race,  it 
is  almost  exclusively  to  his  remarks  on  this  subject,  contained  in  the 
"  Juventus  Mundi,"  that  our  attention  must  be  directed. 

Mr.  Gladstone  supposes  that  the  Pelasgians  worshipped  the  "  Nature- 
Powers."  as  he  calls  them.  He  is,  no  doubt,  perfectly  right,  so  far  as  his 
subject  limited  his  investigations  to  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war  and  of 
Homer.  The  title  of  the  book  is  evidently  a  misnomer,  if  it  is  meant  to 
indicate  really  primitive  ages.  Yet  some  valuable  admissions  are  con- 
tained in  the  scraps  of  earlier  erudition  occasionally  met  with.  Thus  in 
distinguishing  the  old  Pelasgic  Zeus  from  the  more  recent  Olympian, 
created  by  Homer,  he  is  on  the  right  road  to  truth.  He  had  already 
said  (page  222),  in  speaking  of  this  last  anthropomorphic  deity,  that  "  He 
is  the  depository  of  the  principal  remnants  of  monotheistic  and  providen- 
tial ideas."  And,  having  stated  just  before,  that  "Zeus  is  the  meeting- 
point  of  the  Pelasgic  with  the  Olympian  system  of  religion,"  the  natural 
consequence  is,  that  the  former  God  was  at  the  head  of  a  "monotheistic 
and  providential "  system,  and  that  the  "  Olympian,"  or  Hellenic,  system 
contained  real  "  remnants  "  of  it.  This  is  all  we  are  contending  for ;  and 


EELIGION   IN   PELASGIC    GREECE.  309 

it  may  thus  be  asserted  that  the  old  Pelasgians  did  not  worship  only 
"  Nature-Powers." 

But  the  author  of"  Juventus  Mundi  "  is  particularly  skillful  in  showing 
how  the  "  Olympian  Zeus  "  of  Homer  had  received,  from  the  Pelasgic, 
attributes  which  later  did  not  remain  to  Him,  so  that  the  belief  of  the 
Hellenes  went  on  deteriorating  from  age  to  age.  Thus  as  he  says  :  "  To 
Zeus,  as  Providence,  belong  both  a  number  of  separate  ascriptions,  and  a 
general  position,  which  underlies  the  whole  action  of  the  Iliad.  The 
grandeur  of  his  attributes  transcends  every  other  composition.  He  is 
identified,  in  perhaps  an  hundred  places  of  the  poems,  with  the  word 
theos,  in  its  more  abstracted  signification,  as  Providence,  or  the  moral 
governor  of  the  world.  He  is  the  arbiter  of  war ;  and  he  exhibits  in  the 
sky,  on  great  occasions,  the  scales  in  which  are  weighed  contending  fates. 
He  is  the  source  of  governing  authority,  and  he  shows  his  displeasure 
when  it  is  abused.  He  is  the  distributor  in  general  of  good  and  evil 

among  mortals He  has  the  care  of  the  guest,  the  suppliant,  and  the 

poor ;  and  thus  his  name  becomes  the  guarantee  for  three  relations,  which 
were  and  are  fundamental  to  the  condition  of  mankind,  considered  with 
reference  to  social  existence.  Indeed,  in  this  character  he  is  himself  a 
Source  of  Destiny,  as  we  find  from  the  remarkable  phrase — Afdr  alaa — the 
fate  proceeding  from  Zeus/' 

These  were  the  grand  ideas  which  Homer  took  from  the  former  belief 
of  the  Pelasgians  in  their  Supreme  God.  Would  to  Heaven  the  poet  had 
always  kept  up  the  character  of  the  Pelasgic  Deity,  and  his  imagination 
had  not  degraded  such  a  Being  by  all  possible  human  vices,  as  he  does 
in  "  an  hundred  places  of  his  poems." 

Of  the  deteriorating  process  "  progressing  "  subsequently  for  centuries, 
a  remarkable  passage  ought  to  be  quoted,  as  it  expresses  so  exactly  what 
we  have  all  along  been  endeavoring  to  establish.  It  is  found  at  page  182 
of  the  Boston  Ed.,  1869.  The  author  is  treating  of  the  "  Olympian  system 
of  Homer  ":  "  Its  character  continually  altered  ;  and  altered  for  the  worse. 
It  has  features  which  are  sublime,  and  features  which  are  deba«ed.  But 
the  sublime  features  of  the  Olympian  characters  became,  with  the  lapse 
of  generations,  less  and  less  observable ;  the  debased  ones  grew  more  and 
more  prominent.  And  the  profoundly  interesting  specialities  of  the  sev- 
eral deities,  indicating  their  respective  origins,  at  length  became  appa- 
rently imperceptible  even  to  the  Greeks  themselves.  No  one  can  closely 
and  carefully  examine  the  system  of  Homer  without  a  deep  interest ;  DO 
one  can  find  much  ground  for  such  an  interest  in  the  theological  part  of 
the  religion  of  the  historic  period.  Only  its  ethical  idens,  and  the  highly 
poetic  ideas  connected  with  destiny,  retain  any  attractive  power;  and 
from  the  mythology  these  ideas  are,  in  the  later  stages  of  the  Olympian, 
system,  almost  wholly  dissociated." 


310  GENTILISM. 

Another  most  interesting  point  of  difference  between  the  Pelasgic  and 
Olympian  religions,  mentioned  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  is  the  existence  of  a  real 
priesthood  in  the  first,  which  is  no  more  visible  in  the  second. 

From  the  poems  of  Homer  themselves,  we  learn  that  the  Pelasgic  tem- 
ples had  all  a'  re^evof,  or  glebe  for  the  priests.  It  is,  in  fact,  a  feature  com- 
mon to  all  p;imitive  nations.  It  is  only  the  Greeks,  led,  it  would  seem, 
by  the  Ionian  bard  himself,  who  did  not,  in  ancient  times,  adopt  the  cus- 
tom, which — we  may  mention  it  incidentally — is,  at  this  moment,  dis- 
carded,'more  or  less,  by  all  modern  so-called  Christian  nations,  in  spite 
of  the  protests  of  the  Catholic  Church.  But  a  glebe  supposes  a  system 
of  ministers  of  religion  ordained  for  the  purpose,  and  set  apart  for  the 
service  of  God.  The  Hellenes,  from  the  time  of  Homer  downwards,  for- 
got entirely  so  necessary  a  provision  for  the  stability  of  religion,  al- 
though the  Pelasgians,  their  ancestors,  had  brought  the  custom  from 
Asia. 

Consequently,  says  Mr.  Gladstone  again  (page  182,  183):  "The  won- 
der, indeed,  is,  not  that  the  Olympian  religion  should  have  failed  to  resist 
the  corrosion  of  change,  but  that  it  should  have  been  able,  in  any  manner, 
to  retain  its  identity.  Devoid,  as  it  was,  of  all  authority,  and  even  of 
the  allegation  of  authority,  for  its  origin,  and  not  only  unsustained.  but 
belied,  by  the  witness  of  surrounding  nations,  it  probably  had  little  less 
of  unity  than  such  as  it  derived  from  the  great  bard  of  the  nation  and 
from  its  imaginative  splendor ;  while  it  had  none  of  the  guarantees,  real, 
even  if  partial,  which  are  afforded  either  by  books  known  and  recog- 
nized as  sacred,  or  by  a  compact  and  permanent  hierarchy,  dating,  or 

professing  to  date,  from  the  beginning  of  the  system Neither  was 

the  priest,  as  such,  a  significant  personage  in  Greece  at  any  period,  nor 
had  the  priest  of  any  one  place  or  deity,  any  organic  connection  with  the 
priest  of  any  other ;  so  that,  if  there  were  priests,  yet  there  was  not  a 
priesthood." 

A  last  observation,  but  a  very  important  one,  is  derived  from  the  list 
of  words  which  must  be  Pelasgian,  and  of  which  Mr.  Gladstone  furnishes 
abundant  examples.  As  no  Pelasgic  inscription  that  we  know  of  has  so 
far  been  found,  the  Right  Hon.  author  justly  remarks,  that  the  La  ins 
being  surely  derived  originally  from  the  race,  the  words  common  both  to 
the  Latin  and  Greek  languages  must  come  from  the  primitive  source,  and 
be  Pelasgic,  excepting  the  few  Greek  words  introduced  in  course  of  time, 
and  well  known  to  philologists.  But  it  is  extremely  remarkable  that, 
except  the  vocable  6e6f  and  one  or  two  others  which  belong  both  to  the 
Latin  and  Greek,  all  the  words  expressing  religious  ideas  are  completely 
distinct  in  both  idioms.  From  which  very  strange  fact  Mr.  Gladstone 
concludes,  that  "  in  one  case,  or  in  both,  there  must  have  been  a  great 
displacement  of  the  Pelasgic  vocabulary.  And  as  the  Roman  religion 


RELIGION    IN    PELASGIC    GREECE.  311 

•was  far  more  Pelasgian  than  the  Greek,  it  is  probable  that  this  displace- 
ment, if  it  occurred  in  one  only  of  the  two  peninsulas,  occurred  in 
Greece." 

The  question  naturally  arises,  after  reading  this  astounding  statement, 
"Was  Homer,  the  founder  and  absolute  maker  of  Hellenism,  gui'ty  of 
changing  the  language  of  the  Pelasgians,  in  order  to  pervert  more  easily 
their  religion  ?  We  could  not  venture  to  answer  this  question  in  the 
affirmative  without  further  proofs,  as  the  change  of  expression  in  religious 
matters  might  have  happened  before  him. 


CHAPTEE  VI. 


INTRODUCTION  OF   IDOLATRY  IN   HEROIC  GREECE. 


I. 


are  met  at  the  very  threshold  of  our  investigations  in 
this  new  portion  of  our  subject,  by  the  almost  universal  opin- 
ion of  writers  on  Greece,  at  least  of  those  immediately  pre- 
ceding our  age,  that  the  heroic  times  of  Hellas  were  barbarous. 
How  many  horrible  facts  have  not  the  semi-fabulous  annals  of 
Pelops,  of  Atreus,  of  Laius,  left  on  record  ?  Was  not  the  age  of 
Hercules  an  age  of  monsters  \  The  Greeks  themselves,  in  their 
writings  of  a  later  age,  have  taken  an  apparent  delight  in  prov- 
ing that  their  ancestors  were  worse  than  barbarians.  The 
dramatists,  particularly,  have  found,  in  the  old  annals  of  their 
race,  horrors  enough  to  fill  their  poems.  To  present  the  same 
old  subjects  on  our  modern  stage,  the  best  poets  of  France  and 
of  Italy  have  had  to  tone  down  considerably  the  dark  colors  of 
the  picture  left  by  Hellenic  authors.  No  refined  audience 
could  now  tolerate  an  exact  reproduction  of  the  great  master- 
pieces of  Greece.  The  attempt  has,  we  believe,  been  made  in 
Germany ;  we  do  not  know  with  what  success.  But  as  nothing 
has  been  said  of  the  project  for  many  years  past,  we  presume 
that  the  Germans  are  no  greater  admirers  of  Greek  mythic 
horrors  than  the  rest  of  mankind. 

We  propose  to  show  that  the  Heroic  age  of  Hellas  was  not 
the  barbarous  age  it  has  been  represented  as  being  by  its  own 
writers,  as  well  as  by  modern  authors ;  and  that  these  produc- 
(313) 


HEROIC    GREECE.  313 

tions  of  the  Greqk  stage  do  not  give  us  the  real  picture  of  those 
primitive  times. 

Where  can  we  find  that  true  picture  ?  In  the  long  poems  of 
Homer,  chiefly  his  Odyssey ;  in  many  fragments  of  old.  poets, 
which  have  reached  us  through  more  modern  authors ;  in  num- 
berless passages  of  the  first  historians  of  Greece,  where  the  sim- 
plicity of  primitive  manners  is  yet  preserved  in  many  charm- 
ing anecdotes,  and  long  stories  of  enchanting  artlessness.  The 
dramatists  intended  to  strike  terror,  and  invented  circumstances 
which  were  only  creatures  of  their  imagination.  They  took, 
moreover,  a  few  facts  which  they  painfully  elaborated  into  mon- 
strous legends  of  crime  and  horror.  It  is  not  thus  we  can  ob- 
tain a  true  delineation  of  the  manners  of  those  times.  Let  us 
try  to  find  out  what  was  in  fact  the  moral  and  social  situation 
of  Greece  at  the  time  of  the  Heraclidse  and  the  Argonauts. 

We  are  met  at  the  very  outset  of  our  inquiry  by  the  impor- 
tant objection :  Are  Homer  and  Herodotus,  on  whose  testi- 
mony we  intend  chiefly  to  rely,  safe  guides  in  a  cool  and  mat- 
ter-of-fact research  ?  Is  not  the  first  a  "  poet,"  that  is  to  say, 
an  inventor  ef  things  which  never  happened  ?  And  is  not 
Herodotus  a  composer  of  legends,  a  gossiping  historian,  fit  only 
for  children  in  the  nursery  ?  Homer  is  altogether  untrustwor- 
thy when  he  speaks  of  religion  and  cosmogony.  As  he  under- 
stood nothing  of  either,  he  invented  what  he  did  not  know,  and 
was,  by  his  inventions,  the  chief  cause  of  the  subsequent  errors 
of  his  countrymen.  But  when  he  speaks  of  things  which  he 
knew,  either  by  eye-sight  or  by  sure  tradition,  can  a  safer  author 
be  found,  in  ancient  or  modern  times  2  Who  has  ever  described 
more  truly  the  phenomena  of  nature,  or  the  marvels  of  art 
which  he  saw  ?  Is  not  every  word  a  true  pencilling,  and  the 
whole  thing  a  picture  ?  As  the  rising  and  the  setting  of  the 
sun,  the  howling  of  the  tempest,  and  the  warbling  of  birds, 
the  colors  of  the  rainbow,  and  the  darkness  of  night,  are  to  us 
the  same  as  they  were  to  him,  do  we  not  always  admire  the 


314  GENTILISM. 

fidelity  to  Nature  as  well  as  the  graphic  power  with  which  he 
describes  natural  phenomena?  And  when  it  is  question  of 
things,  social  and  domestic,  which  he  witnessed  in  his  time 
among  his  countrymen ;  when  he  speaks,  for  instance,  of  the 
occupations  of  women  in  a  Pelasgic  or  in  a  Hellenic  house,  of 
the  sitting  of  judges  at  the  gates  of  cities,  of  the  public  games, 
the  wrestling  of  athletes,  the  swift  running  of  chariots,  the 
trappings  of  horses ;  when  he  describes  the  public  acts  of  relig- 
ion and  the  festivities  of  citizens,  the  details  of  sacrifices,  the 
dancing  and  music,  etc.,  etc.,  are  we  not  sure  that  all  those 
things  happened  exactly  as  he  delineated  them  ? 

So,  too,  when  it  is  question  of  facts  happening  in  his  time, 
or  well  ascertained  by  tra'dition,  he  must  be  acknowledged  as 
an  historian,  for  his  definite  object  was  to  record  facts.  He 
is  not  an  epic  "  poet,"  like  Yirgil,  who,  living  in  an  artificial 
age,  and  after  Aristotle  had  given  the  artistic  rules  of  a  work 
of  "  fiction,"  wrote  his  ^Eneid  as  a  novelist  in  our  age  writes 
his  fanciful  tale. 

It  in  nothing  resembles  a  historic  novel.  Indeed,  in  the 
time  of  Homer  nothing  of  the  kind  can  be  supposed.  Prob- 
ably no  one  yet  among  the  Greeks  had  ever  written  in  prose. 
Yerse  was  the  only  means  of  conveying  intelligence  by  writ- 
ing ;  and  whenever  an  author  wrote  in  verse,  he  intended  to 
state  what  he  thought  was  true,  and  not  what  he  "  fancied." 
Hence,  Homer  was 'considered  by  the  ancients  as  a  true  histo- 
rian. Strabo,  in  the  two  first  books  of  his  geography,  endeav- 
ors to  show  that  he  was  a  most  reliable  historian,  geographer, 
and  naturalist.  And  so,  indeed,  he  was  for  his  age,  and  those 
which  immediately  followed  it.  We  are  sure,  consequently, 
that  when  he  describes  manners  and  social  customs,  they  were 
those  of  his  time,  and  he  merely  published  what  he  saw.  And 
as  no  writer  ever  equalled  him  in  point  of  accuracy  in  his  de- 
scriptions, we  can  altogether  rely  on  him  as  on  the  most  faith- 
ful delineator  of  those  early  ages. 


HEROIC   GREECE.  315 

The  same  now  must  be  said  of  Herodotus,  of  whom,  how- 
ever, Strabo  entertained  a  very  different  opinion.  For  a  long 
time  the  "  Father  of  History  "  was  considered  only  as  a  won- 
der-monger, hunting  up  ridiculous  stories,  to  idealize  them  in 
his  imperishable  style,  and  catch  gullible  people,  as  children 
are  caught  by  fairy-tales.  But  after  the  long  labors  of  critics 
and  investigators  after  truth,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  think 
thus  of  the  enchanting  Halicarnassian.  All  now  admit  that 
what  he  "  saw,"  he  faithfully  described ;  that  things  happening 
in  liis  age,  or  immediately  before,  found  in  him  an  exact  annal- 
ist ;  that  what  any  respectable  tradition  handed  down  as  true, 
he  transmitted  to  us  in  its  native  simplicity  ;  and  that  when  he 
"misleads"  us,  it  is  not  through  any  intention  of  "deceiving," 
but  because  he  was  himself  misled  by  the  "tale-bearers"  of 
his  day.  Nay,  many  of  his  assertions  which  seemed  incredible 
at  first,  and  were,  for  that  reason,  alleged  by  many  as  proofs  of 
his  untrustworthiness,  have  since  been  verified.  We  are  con- 
fident, therefore,  that  whenever  Herodotus  describes  any  event, 
impregnated  with  the  perfume  of  patriarchal  antiquity,  he  is 
but  passing  on  to  us  the  sweet  fragrance  of  primitive  times. 
.And  he  could  not  do  this  unless  he  had  received  from  previous 
enchanters  the  aroma  of  an  age  which  had,  already,  in  his 
time,  passed  away  for  ever. 

II. 

The  first  phenomenon  which  strikes  us,  when  we  take 
a  cursory  glance  over  Greek  territory,  is  similar  to  that  which 
presented  itself  in  India  and  Egypt.  Indeed,  the  division 
of  the  territory  is  yet  a  deal  more  remarkable  in  the  former 
than  in  the  latter.  We  find,  in  the  heroic  age,  the  country 
cut  up  into  an  infinite  number  of  small  States,  each  with 
its  peculiar  physiognomy,  yet  enjoying  all  the  same  opinions, 
customs  to  a  great  extent,  and  chiefly  social  and  domestic 


316  GENTILISM. 

manners.  Homer,  in  his  descriptions,  represents  all  the  tribes 
as  equal  in  point  of  civilization.  "We  do  not  remark  between 
the  eastern  and  western  parts  of  Hellas,  between  Attica,  for 
instance,  and  ^Etolia,  the  difference  so  remarkable  in  a  later 
age,  when  the  Athenians  were  so  polished  and  the  ^Etolians 
so  rude.  According  to  him,  the  Thessalian  differs  in  .nothing 
from  the  inhabitant  of  Laconia.  They  all  speak  the  same 
language,  have  the  same  dress,  the  same  weapons,  the  same 
domestic  customs — are,  in  short,  evidently  the  same  people  ; 
yet  they  are  each  strongly  marked  with  broad  special'  clan 
characteristics.  Thessaly  is  divided,  in  the  time  of  Homer, 
into  ten  different  small  States,  each  with  its  own  ruler ;  and  the 
inhabitant  of  each  boasts  of  his  own  small  country  as  if  it  was 
the  greatest  in  the  world.  In  the  Peloponnesus  we  find  five 
different  kingdoms,  besides  Arcadia  ;  and  one  of  them,  Elis,  is 
governed  by  no  less  than  four  provincial  kings,  as  an  Irish  an- 
nalist would  say.  Hellas  itself,  the  centre  of  Greece,  is  a  per- 
fect hot-bed  of  principalities.  They  are  as  numerous  as  the 
cities  themselves;  and  among  them  the  Athenians  do  not 
claim  any  superior  right  of  preeminence  to  that  of  the  most 
insignificant  of  those  obscure  clans.  As  to  the  islands  of  the 
-^Egean,  and  other  seas,  how  could  the  smallest  rock  emerging 
from  the  deep  do  less  than  enjoy  its  own  king  or  ruler  ? 
Ulysses  was  a  most  powerful  prince,  because,  besides  his  native 
Ithaca,  he  claimed  a  right  over  Zacinthus  and  Cephallene.  So 
completely  was  division  in  clan^  an  established  institution 
among  them  that  when  the  lonians  left  Achaia  in  Pelopon- 
nesus, driven  away  by  new  invaders  who  took  the  name  of 
Achseans,  and  established  themselves  on  the  western  coast  of 
Asia  Minor,  they  naturally  "  formed  themselves  into  twelve 
cities,"  as  Herodotus  relates  (I.  14:5),  "and  refused  to  admit 
more ;  because  when  they  dwelt  in  Peloponnesus,  there  were 
twelve  divisions  of  them,  as  now  there  are  twelve  divisions 
of  the  Acheeaus  who  drove  away  the  lonians.''  This  short 


HEEOIC    GREECE.  317 

passage  of  the  Father  of  History  lets  considerable  light  into 
those  early  times,  and  proves  conclusively  that  men  had  not 
yet  arrived  at  the  modern  notion  that  to  be  happy  and  prosper- 
ous, a  nation  must  consist  of  at  least  fifty  millions  of  people. 

This  fact  of  the  Ionian  colonization  of  Asia  Minor  is  not 
exceptional.  Herodotus,  throughout  his  first  book  (Clio), 
shows  it  to  have  been  a  common  one  in  those  ages.  Thus  in 
§  149  he  enumerates  eleven  cities  founded  in  Asia  Minor  by  the 
^Eolians  as  centres  of  new  tribes,  the  twelfth,  Smyrna,  having 
been  taken  away  from  them.  The  number  twelve  seems  to 
have  been  a  sacred  number  in  those  days.  It  is  another  evi- 
dence of  the  extent  to  which  the  spirit  of  clanship  was  carried 
amongst  them  that  they  were  slow  even  to  form  confederacies 
of  clans.  They  were  satisfied  with  building  a  temple ;  the  one 
used  by  the  lonians  was  called  Panionium,  where  they  sent 
their  deputies  once  a  year  to  regulate  the  general  affairs  of  the 
tribes.  But  Thales,  as  Herodotus  relates  (I.  170),  having  "  ad- 
vised the  lonians  to  constitute  one  general  (permanent)  council 
in  Teos,  which  stands  in  the  centre  of  Ionia,  and  that  the  rest 
of  the  inhabited  cities  should  nevertheless  be  governed  as  in- 
dependent States,"  his  advice  was  rejected.  It  is  as  interesting 
as  strange  to  hear  a  philosopher  like  Thales,  the  oldest  in 
Greece,  propose  a  government  exactly  similar  to  that  of  the 
United  States,  and  to  find  his  proposition  rejected,  probably  as 
opposed  to  the  rights  of  the  States  (or  cities),  which  might  be 
infringed  upon  by  this  kind  of  Washington  government  at 
Teos.  Yet  if  they  were  jealous  of  their  rights,  they  were  not 
"  republicans."  They  were  strong  "  monarchists."  They  could 
not  understand  any  government  but  that  of  one  man.  Hence, 
Homer  expressed  but  the  general  opinion  of  the  heroic  age 
when  he  made  Ulysses  exclaim  : 

"  OVK  dyadbv  TTokvKoipavir)  '  elg  Koipavog  !<TTO>, 
Elq  fiaoikevg,  &  d&KE  Kpovov  Tralg 
rrpov  r'  fj6e  Olfu^raf,  tva  afaoiv 


318  GENTILISM. 

"  Away  with  democracy  !  let  there  be  one  ruler, 
One  king,  to  whom  the  son  of  deep-scheming  Kronos 
Has  handed  over  the  sceptre  and  right,  that  he  may  govern  others." 

Thus  the  doctrine  of  the  "  divine  right "  is  not  a  modern 
notion,  and  did  not  originate  with  King  James  I.  "We  must 
not  be  supposed,  however,  to  be  advocating  that  doctrine.  We 
merely  describe  the  sentiment  of  the  patriarchal  times  of  which 
we  treat.  It  is  certainly  remarkable  that  Greece,  which,  later  on 
in  her  history,  originated  every  conceivable  form  of  democratic 
government,  and  was  the  first  to  proclaim — in  Athens  chiefly— 
the  rule  of  the  many,  was,  in  the  earliest  period  of  her  history, 
so  strongly  wedded  to  the  idea  of  monarchy,  whose  sway,  how- 
ever, it  is  true,  extended  only  over  the  contracted  limits  of  a 
territory  a  few  miles  square.  "We  meet  then,"  as  Heeren 
says  (Ancient  Greece,  Heroic  age),  "  with  no  governments  but 
those  of  princes  and  kings ;  there  were  then  no  republics  ;  and 
yet  republicanism  was  eventually  to  decide  the  political  charac- 
ter of  Greece.  These  monarchical  constitutions,  if  that  name 
may  be  applied  to  them,  were  rather  the  outlines  of  constitu- 
tions than  regular,  finished  forms  of  government.  They  were 
the  consequence  of  the  most  ancient  condition  of  the  nation, 
when  either  ruling  families  sprung  up  in  the  several  tribes,  or 
the  leaders  of  foreign  colonies  had  known  how  to  secure  to 
themselves  and  their  posterity  the  government  over  the  na- 
tives." * 

We  must,  however,  generalize  these  explanations  of  the 
Professor  of  Gottingen,  and  say  that  "  they  were  the  conse- 
quence of  the  primitive  state  of  man,  who  began  by  a  family, . 
and  passed  directly  to  the  condition  of  tribe  under  the  rule  of 
the  patriarch."  Thus  the  clan  becomes  a  sure  sign  of  "  prim- 
eval man,"  because,  as  we  have  before  stated,  "  mankind  be- 
gan by  clanship  ;"  and  the  origin  of  Greece  furnishes  another 
proof  of  the  axiom.  But  the  following  remarks  of  Heeren, 
a  page  farther  down,  are  worthy  of  note,  as  they  seem  to  de- 


HEROIC    GREECE.  319 

scribe  to  the  letter  the  Ireland  of  Ante-Scandinavian  times : 
"  Esteem  for  the  ruling  families  (say  for  the  heads  of  the 
Septs)  secured  to  them  the  government ;  but  their  power  was 
not  strictly  hereditary.  Princes  were  not  much  more  than  the 
first  among  their  peers The  son  had  commonly  the  pre- 
cedence over  others  in  the  succession ;  but  his  claim  wr.s 
measured  by  his  personal  qualifications  for  the  station.  It  was 
his  first  duty  to  lead  in  war ;  and  he  could  not  do  this  unless 
he  was  himself  distinguished  for  courage  and  strength.  His 
privileges  in  peace  were  not  great.  He  called  together  the' 
popular  assembly,  which  was  chiefly,  if  not  exclusively,  com- 
posed of  the  older  and  more  distinguished  citizens.  Here  the 
king  had  his  own  seat ;  the  ensign  of  his  dignity  was  a  sceptre 

or  staff,  etc His  superiority  (in  material  circumstances) 

consisted  'in  a  piece  of  land,  and  a  larger  part  of  the  booty. 
Excepting  this,  he  derived  his  support  from  his  own  posses- 
sions and  the  produce  of  his  fields  and  herds.  The  preserva- 
tion of  his  dignity  required  an  almost  unbounded  hospitality, 
etc."  Thus  the  clan  system  appears  to  be  so  natural,  and,  on 
that  account,  precise,  that  it  presents  absolutely  the  same  fea- 
tures in  all  countries,  all  climates,  and  all  times. 

But  in  such  state  of  society  was  not  man  an  ignorant,  rude, 
and  uncouth  barbarian ;  and  is  not  this  the  general  opinion 
scholars  have  ever  had  of  the  heroic  age  of  Greece  ?  "No  true 
scholar  can  entertain  such  an  opinion.  The  precise  and  numer- 
ous details  contained  in  classic  authors,  which  testify  to  a  high 
state  of  knowledge,  and  suppose  a  happy  and  tranquil  social 
condition,  make  it  impossible. 

Take,  for  example,  the  excessively  numerous  and  prosperous 
populations  which  existed  in  those  times.  The  intelligent 
reader  of  Homer  is  struck  by  what  the  poet  says  of  the  num- 
berless cities  which  then  embellished  Greece.  And  these  were 
not  open  hamlets,  composed  of  a  few  huts  for  a  far-scattered 
population.  They  had  walls  ;  the  gates  were  generally  adorned 
22 


320  GEXTILISM. 

with  towers ;  the  houses  formed  streets,  well  laid  out  and  broad ; 
yet  the  dwellings  were  not  contiguous  and  crowding  on  each 
other,  but  they  had  in  front  a  court,  and  a  garden  in  the  rear. 
All  that  our  modern  ideas  of  comfort  have  since  realized  in  ths 
rural  towns  of  our  most  prosperous  States,  existed  already  i:i 
Hellas.  The  faithful  delineations  of  the  old  wandering  bard, 
who  had  visited  most  of  the  countries  he  described,  or  knew  by 
report  what  took  place  before  him,  cannot  leave  us  any  doubt 
of  the  correctness  of  his  sketches.  Later  on,  in  the  refined  age 
of  Pericles,  there  were,  no  doubt,  finer  buildings,  more  exqui- 
site works  of  art,  a  greater  abundance  of  metallic  or  marble 
statues.  There  was  not,  we  are  sure,  more  prosperity  and  real 
comfort.  In  each  city  a  large  market  square,  adorned  with 
porticos  and  simple  Doric  columns,  was  the  common  place  of 
meeting  for  the  citizens.  There  they  lived  in  the  open  air, 
and  spent  the  greater  part  of  the  day  ;  not  yet  meddling  in  the 
affairs  of  the  commonwealth  intrusted  to  the  care  of  the 
chieftain;  not  yet  all  eagerly  busying  themselves  to  receive 
the  first  news  of  the  day,  as  later  on,  at  the  time  of  Demos- 
thenes ;  but  full  already  of  the  spirit  of  gossip,  taking  their 
first  lessons  in  dialectics  and  argument,  preparing  for  their 
race  a  long  era  of  rationalism,  philosophy,  and  discussion ;  or 
listening  eagerly  to  the  first  strains  of  that  enchanting  poetry 
and  music,  which  was  to  last  forever,  and  to  re-echo  in  future 
ages  wherever  the  name  of  Greece  should  reach,  and  the  works 
of  her  oldest  poets  should  be  read. 


III. 


In  our  false  ideas  of  primitive  history,  man  was  first  a  hunter, 
a  tearer  of  the  flesh  of  his  enemies,  a  rude  warrior,  and  a 
blood-thirsty  savage.  Nothing  is  more  opposed  to  the  first 
pictures  of  the  state  of  man  as  modern  researches  have  spread 


HEROIC    GREECE.  321 

them  before  our  astonished  vision,  ^imrod  was  a  hunter  in 
the  plains  of  Babylon  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Persian  gulf ; 
but  he  was  an  exception ;  and  hence  he  destroyed  clanship  in 
the  countries  which  he  devastated,  and  established  the  first 
centralized  empire.  But  wherever  man  was  allowed  to  settle 
quietly  and  follow  the  natural  inclinations  of  his  race,  the 
first  state  of  society  was  undoubtedly  idyllic,  pastoral,  and  agri- 
cultural. 

It  is  Herodotus  himself  who  remarks,  at  the  very  beginning 
of  his  work,  that  Asia  and  Europe  had,  from  the  beginning, 
lived  quietly  apart,  without  any  mutual  disturbance,  until  the 
rapes  of  lo,  of  Europa,  and  of  Helen,  kindled  for  the  first  time 
war  between  the  two  continents.  This  assertion  of  the  Father 
of  History  is  confirmed  by  some  writer  whose  name  now 
escapes  us,  and  who  remarks,  with  great  justice  and  force,  that 
the  preparations  for  the  Trojan  war,  all  over  Greece  and  Asia 
Minor,  show  conclusively  that  those  countries  had,  until  that 
time,  enjoyed  a  long  period  of  quiet  and  peace,  and  had 
reached,  in  happiness  and  contentment,  a  high  state  of  pros- 
perity. There  can  be  no  doubt  of  this  in  the  mind  of  any 
thoughtful  reader  perusing  the  pages  of  Homer  and  of  Hesiod, 
chiefly  the  "  Opera  et  Dies." 

And  on  this  subject  we  cannot  but  refer  with  amazement 
to  the  opinion  of  some  modern  critics,  who,  finding  the  great 
work  of  the  Boeotian  poet  (Hesiod)  too  peaceful  and  bucolic 
for  their  ideas  of  those  blood-thirsty  ages,  imagine  the  two 
bards — the  Ionian  and  the  Bceotian — to  have  been  the  heads 
of  two  schools  of  poets :  the  Homeric,  full  of  fury,  of  wars, 
and  rumors  of  war ;  the  Hesiodic,  intent  only  on  rural  peace, 
as  a  protest  against  the  general  savagery  of  the  period.  This 
thought  may  be  ingenious,  but  it  is  not  true.  Homer  does  not 
sing  only  of  war.  His  Odyssey  is  as  idyllic  and  pastoral  as  the 
"  Opera  et  Dies"  of  Hesiod  ;  and  even  his  "  Iliad"  is  full  of 
sweet  descriptions  of  agricultural  and  pastoral  scenes,  showing 


322  GEXTILISM. 

tlie  general  bias  of  the  time  to  have  been  peaceful  and  home- 
loving.  The  very  shield  of  Achilles,  forged  by  Vulcan,  repre- 
sented on  its  convex  surface  more  scenes  of  husbandmen's  life 
than  of  warriors.  Yes,  the  very  Trojan  war  itself,  with  all  its 
immense  preparations,  supports  our  argument. 

Another,  and  not  unimportant,  confirmation  of  what  we  have 
alleged,  is  to  be  found  in  the  description  of  an  Hellenic  private 
house  at  that  period.  It  was  always  large  and  spacious,  cool 
and  airy,  as  the  climate  required.  Around  an  open  court  ran 
shaded  galleries,  to  which  succeeded,  much  later  on,  the  "  at- 
riums "  of  the  Romans,  and  later  still,  the  "  cloisters  "  of  our 
mediaeval  monasteries.  Bed-chambers  were  prepared  for  the  men 
around  these  lower  galleries,  and,  from  the  court  itself,  a  large 
entrance  conducted  the  men  to  the  "  hall,"  where  they  met  for 
conversation.  At  the  back  of  the  whole  building  stood  the 
"  hearth,"  where  the  lady  of  the  house  was  usually  to  be  found. 
A  flight  of  steps  was  constructed  for  her  especial  use,  leading 
to  an  upper  gallery,  around  which  were  arranged  the  women's 
apartments.  Everywhere  painted  woods,  even  then  orna- 
mented with  the  brush  and  pencil,  gave  a  cheerful  appearance 
to  the  interior  ;  and  polished  metals — brass,  chiefly — reflected, 
in  the  evenings,  the  light  of  the  blazing  fire  of  the  hearth,  or 
of  the  lamps  suspended  around.  Was  this  the  castle  of  a  me- 
diaeval Norman,  or  rather  the  elegant  dwelling  of  civilized 
people  ?  It  is  true  there  was  somewhere  a  room  apart  where 
arms  were  kept.  We  know  how  they  were  used  in  Ithaca 
against  the  obstreperous  lovers  of  Penelope.  But  as  we  do  not 
read  anywhere  that  public  arsenals  had  yet  been  built  to  de- 
posit the  arms  required  in  time  of  war,  or  for  the  hunt,  it  was 
but  natural  that  such  necessary  articles  should  be  deposited  in 
the  houses  of  private  citizens. 

These  were  the  dwellings  of  the  inhabitants.  All  around 
were  erected  large  stables  for  their  numerous  horses,  -or  for  the 
well-fed  cattle.  Capacious  bams  stood  ready  to  receive,  in  the 


HEROIC    GREECE.  323 

autumn,  the  produce  of  the  fields ;  for  the  inhabitants  were  all 
of  them  agriculturists.  Everywhere  the  soil  was  cultivated 
with  the  greatest  care ;  all  the  cereals  known  to  us  were  then 
in  use  ;  the  grape-vine  flourished,  and  was  laden,  in  due  s.ea?o  i, 
with  its  rich  purple  clusters  ;  fruit-trees  of  every  kind  abound- 
ed ;  and  the  pruning-knif e,  reaping-hook,  scythe,  and  the 
plough,  all  the  ordinary  implements,  indeed,  used  by  our  fann- 
ers and  gardeners,  were  constantly  in  the  hands  of  the  primitive 
Hellenes,  although  "  modern  genius  "  had  not  yet  invented  for 
them  the  sowing,  reaping,  and  thrashing  machines,  or  the  steam- 
ploughs.  Any  one  acquainted  with  the  agricultural  details  con- 
tained in  the  most  ancient  authors,  may  well  doubt  if  the 
Greece  of  after  ages  was  ever  better  cultivated ;  nay,  if  in  our 
boasted  days,  many  nations  practice  agriculture  with  the  same 
success.  The  Hellenes  of  our  times  are  certainly,  in  that  re- 
gard, far  behind  their  Pelasgic  progenitors. 

A  few  paragraphs  above,  we  have  spoken  of  metals,  of  brass 
chiefly,  used  in  private  houses  together  with  fine  woods.  There 
is  a  very  general  impression,  in  these  days,  that  metals  were 
scarcely  known,  and  very  sparingly  used,  before  our  age.  We 
have,  however,  only  to  read  Homer  attentively  to  find  that  the 
houses  of  rich  people — and  many  of  them  were  rich — were  posi- 
tively filled  with  metallic  implements  of  every  description. 
Our  most  wealthy  mansions  cannot  compete  with  them  in  this 
regard.  Polished  ^rass  was  certainly  seen  everywhere;  but 
what  an  idea  of  the  splendor  of  the  interior  of  Pelasgic  houses 
does  it  give  us,  to  read,  that  in  the  dining-hall  of  Alcinous 
there  was.a  row  of  "  gold  statues  of  young  men  carrying  in  their 
hands  lighted  torches,  to  shed  a  brilliant  light  on  the  well-built 
walls  and  the  high  ceilings  1"  (Odyssey,  vii.,  100).  Yet  the 
manners  of  the  inhabitants  of  this  splendid  palace  were  so  sim- 
ple, that  Nausicaa,  the  daughter  of  the  Phseacian  King,  used  to 
go  to  wash  the  linen  of  the  family  in  the  stream  running  at  the 
foot  of  the  next  meadow.  Homer,  it  is  true,  may  not  have  had 


324  GENTILISM. 

the  intention  to  state  an  historical  fact  with  respect  to  these 
statues  of  Alcinous;  yet  he  would  not  certainly  have  men- 
tioned it  if  he  had  not  himself  witnessed  some  fact  of  the 
kind,  or  heard  of  it  on  good  authority.  He  always  described 
what  he  saw  or  knew.  But  how  many  other  details  given  by 
the  poet  prove  the  mineral  wealth  of  those  people  ?  The  walls, 
covered  with  metallic  ornaments ;  the  seats  of  brass  or  iron  ; 
the  ewers  for  washing  the  hands  in  gold  ;  the  basins  of  silver  ; 
everything,  in  fact,  except  the  house  itself,  in  metal.  Let  the 
reader  imagine  all  the  wooden  utensils  seen  in  our  houses ;  all 
the  plate  used  by  us,  of  earthenware,  of  common  china,  as  it  is 
called,  all  the  chairs  and  seats  spread  in  our  parlors,  to  be  made 
of  brass,  gold,  or  silver,  and  he  will  have  a  faithful  representa- 
tion of  the  interior  of  a  Greek  dwelling  in  the  heroic  age. 
The  Phoenicians,  and  the  Arabs  before  them,  as  testified  by 
Job,  had  already  carried  the  mining  art  as  far  as  it  is  carried 
now. 

Herodotus,  an  eye  witness  (vi.,  46),  mentions  in  particular 
the  gold  mines  of  Thasos :  "  The  most  wonderful  of  them,"  he 
says,  "  are  those  discovered  by  the  Phoenicians,  when  led  by 
Thasus  they  colonized  the  island.  These  mines  are  opposite 
Samothrace,  between  ^Enyra  and  Ccenyra :  a  large  mountain 
has  been  thrown  upside  down  in  the  search."  From  these 
words  of  the  Father  of  History,  gold  was  there  obtained  by 
washing.  We  know  that  the  Phoenicians  extracted  it  also  from 
quartz. 

If  people  in  those  times  had  not  yet  come  to  the  point  of 
producing  lumps  of  metal,  equal  in  bulk  to  the  enormous 
masses  which  now  issue  daily  from  our  modern  huge  factories 
and  iron  mills,  yet  what  they  produced  was  much  more  highly 
elaborated,  and,  with  them,  art  replaced  bulk.  If  the  reader 
should  require  further  evidence  of  a  similar  purport,  let  him 
consult  Herodotus,  where  he  tells  us  of  the  metallic  wealth  of 
Croesus  in  Lydia,  who  lived  in  an  age  not  very  far  removed 


HEROIC    GREECE.  325 

from  that  high  antiquity  which  occupies  us ;  the  immense  treas- 
ures of  ancient  Hellenic  sanctuaries,  particularly  of  the  cele- 
brated one  of  Delphi,  etc. 

But  as  our  scope  does  not  require  more  convincing  proofs, 
we  will  merely  ask  ourselves  in  concluding  this  interesting  sub- 
ject :  Still,  it  may  be  objected,  what  about  the  Cyclops  and  the 
Polyphernusses,  and  the  Geryons  of  the  Greek  heroic  age  ?  Is 
it  not  by  such  highly- wrought  descriptions  of  barbarism  and 
savagery,  that  we  ought  to  judge  of  that  ancient  period  of  Hel- 
las ?  To  this  we  reply,  that  all  those  wonderful  tales  were  nar- 
rated of  far  distant  countries.  Geryon  was  a  monster  nourish- 
ing at  the  western  extremity  of  Spain,  at  the  very  last  limit  of 
the  then  known  world.  The  Cyclops  and  Polyphemusses  lived 
in  desert  islands,  and  ate  the  fiesh  only  of  strangers  stranded 
on  their  shore.  The  Griffins,  who  fought  so  ardently  against 
the  foreign  people  who  came  to  steal  their  gold,  were  supposed 
to  flap  their  wings  and  sharpen  their  claws  in  the  frozen  atmos- 
phere of  the  far  north.  And  so  of  the  others.  It  is  just  what 
travellers  used  formerly  to  relate  of  the  strange  countries  they 
alone  had  visited.  Hence  the  French  proverb  :  "  A  beau 
mentir  qui  vient  de  loin,"  etc.  We  cannot  conclude  without  a 
word  or  two  on  the  morality  of  these  primitive  ages.  It  was 
then  that  "  suppliants  " — supplices — enjoyed  an  inviolable  char- 
acter ;  that  the  sanctity  of  an  oath  was  universally  respected ; 
that  "  hospitality "  was  not  only  a  name,  but  a  great  fact,  so 
that  strangers  were  treated  almost  as  sacred  beings,  except  in  a 
few  spots  on  the  borders  of  hostile  countries,  as  in  Tauris, 
where  Greeks,  having  often  acted  as  pirates,  were  openly 
treated  as  enemies  and  sacrificed  to  Diana.  The  horrors  of  the 
old  Greek  drama  have  been  often  insisted  upon  as  positive  proofs 
of  barbarism.  Yet  even  in  it  there  are  many  exculpatory  cir- 
cumstances which  militate  against  such  a  conclusion.  (Edipus, 
for  instance,  was  never  guilty  of  voluntary  incest ;  yet  he 
treated  himself,  and  was  treated  by  fate,  as  if  he  had  been  a 


326  GEIfTILISM. 

willing  criminal.  Who,  in  our  age,  thinks  that  adultery  ought 
to  be  punished  as  it  was  on  Clytemnestra  and  her  whole  fam- 
ily ?  The  u  feast "  of  Thyestes  was  evidently  a  myth,  intended 
to  explain  the  long  misfortunes  of  the  Atridae.  For  people 
then  believed  that  a  great  crime  required  a  great  expiation, 
*  and  this  conviction  cannot  but  be  a  strong  basis  of  morality. 
Those  very  "  horrible  "  facts  themselves,  instead  of  indicating 
a  state  of  barbarism,  do,  on  the  contrary,  when  we  study  them 
more  profoundly,  supply  a  convincing  evidence  of  the  intense 
vitality  of  human  conscience  in  those  ages. 


IV. 


We  have  asserted  that  the  period  of  pure  religion  in  Greece 
must  have  been  short,  and  must  soon  have  given  way  to  pan- 
theism. We  must. now  examine  the  "backward  progress"  of 
the  Hellenes,  as  we  have  already  done  in  the  case  of  Hindostan 
and  Egypt.  It  is  remarkable  that  all  ancient  authors  attribute 
the  first  great  step  in  error  to  Orpheus,  the  almost-inspired  and 
divine  bard.  He  preached  openly  pantheism,  and  even,  ac- 
cording to  many,  he  was,  conjointly  with  Homer  and  Hesiod, 
who  appeared  long  after  him,  the  author  of  positive  idolatry, 
by  "  giving  names  to  the  gods,"  so  that  he  must  have  been  one 
of  those  Pelasgians  mentioned  by  Herodotus  in  a  passage  we 
have  previously  quoted. 

It  is  evident  that  no  single  man,  chiefly  a  man  of  genius, 
could  have  played  so  many  and  opposite  characters.  Orpheus, 
in  many  things,  is  a  generic*  name,  and  includes  a  succession 
of  several  men.  But  the  fact  of  all  being  included  in  one, 
shows  that  the  decline  in  pure  doctrine  must  have  been  rapid, 
and  the  result  of  a  short  period  of  time. 

The  reader  will  find  in  Cudworth's  "  Systema  Intellectuale" 
many  passages  of  ancient  authors  attributing  to  Orpheus  the 


HEROIC    GREECE.  327 

belief  that  "  God  was  everything,"  and  "  that  everything  was 
God."  The  same  is  contained  in  the  passage  of  St.  Clement 
of  Alexandria,  given  by  us,  in  which  God  is  said  to  be  "  the 
beginning,  the  middle,  and  the  end"  of  all  things.  Several 
hymns  attributed  to  'Orpheus  contain  not  only  the  broadest 
pantheism,  but  indicate  a  step  nearer  to  the  "  elementary  "  wor- 
ship mentioned  in  the  "Book  of  Wisdom,"  by  attributing 
divine  attributes  to  the  sun,  the  stars,  the  earth,  the  elements 
in  general  and  in  particular.  Our  readers  remember  the  pas- 
sage of  the  inspired  writer  we  quoted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
work.  The  element-worship  of  Orpheus  is  another  illustra- 
tion of  it.  This,  in  our  opinion,  must  have  been  the  religion 
of  the  Pelasgians  for  a  long  time  of  their  existence  as  a  race, 
although  we  have  scarcely  any  proof  to  offer  in  support  of  it. 
AVe  could,  nevertheless,  besides  the  general  religious  and  moral 
complexion  of  the  times,  give,  as  an  argument  on  our  side,  the 
well-known  primitive  worship  of  the  Etruscans  —  Pelasgians 
according  to  the  most  common  opinion,  supported  by  Niebuhr 
and  Ottfried  Miiller  —  and  certainly,  at  first,  worshippers  of 
the  elements  and  forces  of  nature,  undoubtedly  great  diviners, 
angurers,  and  conjurors,  as  the  element -worshippers  must 
always  be.  Every  one  knows  how  they  studied  the  phenomena 
of  "  f  ulguration,"  the  flight  of  birds,  the  sudden  appearance 
of  u  monsters,"  etc.  Their  complex  ritual  was  the  natural 
consequence  of  the  complexity  of  divinized  natural  phenom- 
ena; everything,  in  fact,  goes  to  prove  that  the  Etruscans, 
Pelasgians  originally,  brought  to  Tyrrhenia  the  awe-inspiring 
pantheism  of  the  adorers  of  "  disordered  "  Nature. 

Another,  and  perhaps  stronger,  support  of  this  opinion  is 
taken  from  the  passage  of  Herodotus  on  the  Pelasgians,  quoted 
at  the  beginning  of  the  preceding  chapter.  If  they  did  not  at 
first  give  names  to  the  gods  (0eovf),  they,  however,  worshipped 
them.  But  what-  can  be  the  meaning  of  such  a  worship  if  it 
is  not  individualized,  at  least,  by  the  sight,  since  it  is  not  by 


328  GENTILISM. 

the  speech  ?  They  must  have  worshipped  what  they  saw, 
since  absent  beings  absolutely  require  names  to  be  remembered 
by.  Apollo  and  Athene,  in  the  opinion  of  an  Hellene,  not 
falling  under  the  sight  of  the  worshipper,  must  have  an  indi- 
vidual name  to  be  known  by.  But  the  forked  lightning,  the 
coruscating  meteor,  the  speaking  ox,  the  eagles  flying  swiftly 
in  pairs,  etc.,  need  not  be  named  when  they  are  seen ;  and  it  is 
then  alone  that  they  are  adored — they  are  called  "  0eot." 

However  this  may  be,  such  a  religion  existed  certainly  in 
Greece,  and  something  like  it  was  attributed,  by  many  ancient 
authors,  to  Orpheus.  But  when  the  imagination  of  the  Hel- 
lenes began  to  unfold  its  wings  under  the  pure,  clear  sky  of 
their  country,  they  felt  the  need  of  a  more  cheerful  religion, 
and  the  poets  came  to  their  aid  by  inventing  "  mythology." 
Of  this  now  we  have  to  speak  somewhat  more  extensively,  as, 
on  this  subject,  many  false  opinions  are  entertained,  which  a 
Christian  ought  closely  to  examine  and  sternly  to  reject. 


Y. 


The  word  "myth"  did  not  primarily  mean  "fable"  in 
Greek ;  it  meant  originally  an  "  explanation  of  common 
speech,"  either  by  allegory  or  by  an  historical  fiction.  This 
last  sense  is  the  most  natural  one.  In  the  East  chiefly,  where 
imagination  predominates,  a  speaker,  to  render  truth  more 
attractive  to  the  minds  of  his  hearers,  covers  it  with  an  em- 
blem, or  with  a  supposed  history  ;  and  the  hearers,  accustomed 
to  such  mental  operations,  detect  instantaneously  the  object 
of  the  speaker,  are  pleased  with  his  ingenuity,  and  retain  more 
easily  in  their  memory  the  truths  hidden  under  the  brilliant 
fiction.  To  us  the  same  rhetorical  artifice  is  merely  a  meta- 
phor ;  to  an  Oriental,  it  is  a  myth.  A  myth,  however,  is  sub- 
ject to  an  abuse  which  metaphors  and  other  similar  figures  of 


HEROIC    GEEECE.  329 

speech  are  not.  If  myths  had  been  only  metaphorical,  or  even 
allegorical,  as  the  parables  of  the  !New  Testament,  or  the  fables 
of  ^Esop,  they  would  have  led  into  error  only  extremely  stupid 
people.  Every  one  who  reads  the  "Parable  of  the  Sower"  in 
the  gospel,  immediately  perceives  it  to  be  an  allegory,  and 
endeavors  to  discover  the  explanation.  But  a  myth,  purely 
historical,  although  apparently  of  more  easy  comprehension, 
will,  precisely  on  account  of  this  facility  of  understanding, 
lead  ordinary  people  to  imagine  that  the  fictitious  history  is 
everything,  and  thus  they  take  the  husk  for  the  kernel,  the  in- 
genious covering  for  the  hidden  .truth.  When  the  Egyptian 
priest  related  to  Herodotus  that  one  day  Hercules  hearing 
Jupiter,  wished,  and  asked  to  see  him.  But,  as  the  Supreme 
God  must  remain  invisible  even  to  a  hero,  and  as  Jupiter  was, 
nevertheless,  desirous  of  gratifying  Hercules,  he  took  the  hide 
of  a  ram,  with  the  horns  on  it,  and  covering  himself  entirely 
with  it,  allowed  the  son  of  Semele  thus  to  see  him.  When 
this  myth,  we  say,  was  related  by  an  Egyptian  priest  to  Hero- 
dotus, with  the  remark  that  this  was  the  reason  why  Amun 
(Jupiter)  is  represented  with  the  head  of  a  ram,  we  do  not 
know  precisely  what  the  good  Halycarnassian  may  have 
thought  of  it,  since  he  does  not  attempt  to  acquaint  us  with 
his  ideas  on  the  subject ;  but  it  is  certain  that  the  majority  of 
the  people  who  heard  the  story  thought  only  of  Amun,  and  of 
Hercules,  and  of  the  head  and  hide  of  a  ram.  The  great  idea 
of  a  supreme  and  invisible  God  becoming  perceptible  to  our 
sight  by  the  creation  of  the  Universe,  represented  here  by  the 
sun  entering  the  zodiacal  sign  of  the  ram,  altogether  escaped 
them.  The  allegorical  history  had  taken  the  place  of  the 
meaning  conveyed  by  it.  The  religious  doctrine  had  fallen 
entirely  into  oblivion.  Truth  had  become  a  myth,  and  relig- 
ion had  become  changed  into  "  mythology." 

^Nor  was  it  only  intellectual  and  religious  doctrines  which 
thus  assumed  the  form  of  myths,  but  physical  events  of  every- 


330  GENTILISM. 

day  occurrence,  or  scientific  facts,  as  we  of  this  age  call  them, 
were  also  subjected  to  the  same  process.  Every  atmospheric 
change,  for  instance,  was  explained  by  a  myth  ;  and  soon  there 
were  as  many  gods  as  meteoric  phenomena.  The  same  took 
place  in  the  wonderful  development  of  vegetation ;  in  the  hid- 
den current  of  life  in  all  its  stages ;  in  the  mysteries  concealed 
under  the  waves  of  the  ocean,  as  well  as  in  the  immensity  of 
celestial  space.  Myths  everywhere ;  and  thus  gods  everywhere. 
The  life  of  man,  that  most  mysterious  of  beings,  could  not 
remain  independent  of  the  same  mythical  appreciation ;  and 
St.  Augustine  tells  us  humorously,  but  with  truth,  in  his  great 
work,  "  De  Civitate  Dei,"  Book  vi.,  Chap.  9 :  "In  the  union 
of  man  and  wife,  the  god  Jugatinus  must  intervene  ;  we  have 
no  objection  to  this.  But  when  the  bride  is  to  be  taken  to  her 
new  home,  the  god  Dorniducus  must  be  there  to  conduct  her ; 
that  she  may  like  to  stay  at  home,  is  the  office  of  the  god  Do- 
mitius  ;  that  she  may  not  separate  from  her  husband,  the  god- 
dess Manturna  must  see  to  it.  What  more  is  wanted  ?  Let 

the  pudor  of  the  bride  be  spared Why  is  the  room 

filled  with  gods  and  goddesses  when  the  grooms  and  brides- 
maids leave  it  ? What  need  is  there  of  the  goddess 

Yirginiensis  ?  of  the  god  Subigus  ?  Is  not  the  husband 
enough  ? " 

And  when  the  child  is  born :  "  If  a  father  of  family  em- 
ployed two  nurses,  one  to  give  the  baby  food  and  the  other 
drink,  would  not  people  say  that  he  is  crazy,  and  wants  to  turn 
his  house  into  a  scene  of  comedy ;  yet  these  '  theologians '  must 
invent  for  the  child  the  goddesses  Educa  and  Potiiia." 

"  Yarron,"  says  again  St.  Augustine,  "  unfolds  a  long  list  of 
gods  from  the  conception  of  man,  beginning  by  Janus ;  and 
the  incredible  series  ends  only  at  the  death  of  the  decrepit  old 
stager  ;  closing  the  interminable  procession  by  the  goddess 
Kcenia,  who  is  after  all  only  the  song  chanted  at  the  end  of  the 
funeral  of  old  people." 


HEROIC    GREECE.  331 

As  every  accident  of  human  life  was  thus  placed  under  the 
care  of  some  supernatural  being,  the  natural  consequence  was, 
that  man  himself,  especially  if  a  prince  or  a  hero,  became  god- 
like, and  after  his  death  was  ranked  among  the  gods.  Thus  a 
new  source  of  inextricable  ccnf  usion  arose  in  "  mythology !" 
Real  historical  facts,  the  events,  namely,  of  some  important 
human  life,  became  mythic ;  and  often  could  scarcely  be  distin- 
guished from  older  and  more  solemn  myths.  Thus  Hercules, 
Mercury,  etc.,  became  types  of  altogether  different  mythologi- 
cal personages. 

It  is  into  this  complication  of  absurdities  that  modern  anti- 
quarians have  tried  to  introduce  order.  But  as  most  of  these 
have  been  systematic  men,  they  have'  succeeded  in  clearing 
away  only  a  few  difficulties,  whilst  the  exclusiveness  of  their 
systems  have  introduced  new  sources  of  error  and  obscurity. 
Thus  to  the  primitive  idea  of  some  old  Greek  philosophers, 
chiefly  Epicharmus  and  Empedosles,  for  whom  the  gods  were 
merely  the  types  of  physical  phenomena,  Jove  being  only  the 
Upper  Sky,  Apollo  the  Sun,  and  so  forth ;  to  the  bold  teach- 
ing of  more  modern  Greek  authors,  like  Euhemerus,  who  saw 
in  gods  and  goddesses  only  deified  men  and  women ;  to  the 
more  dignified  opinion  of  many  Christian  writers  who  have 
attempted  to  explain  mythology  as  only  the  corruption  of  re- 
vealed truth,  have  succeeded  in  our  days  sometimes  the  learn- 
ed, severe,  and  convincing  criticism  of  a  few,  sometimes  the 
most  ridiculous  assumptions  of  a  larger  number  of  German  and 
French  authors,  the  English  scarcely  daring  to  take  such  bold 
flights  of  fancy. 

There  is  a  plain  assertion  of  Herodotus  in  Book  ii.,  53,  making 
the  following  important  statement :  "  Whence  each  of  the  gods 
sprung,  whether  they  existed  always,  and  of  what  form  they  were, 
was,  so  to  speak,  unknown  till  yesterday.  For,  I  am  of  opin- 
ion, that  Hesiod  and  Homer  lived  four  hundred  years  before 
my  time,  and  not  more,  and  these  poets  framed  a  theogony  for 


332  GENTILISM. 

the  Greeks,  and  gave  names  to  the  gods,  and  assigned  to  them 
honors  and  arts,  and  declared  their  several  forms  ....  What  I 
have  stated  ahove  (with  respect  to  the  Pelasgians),  is  derived 
from  the  Dodonean  priestesses ;  but  the  last  assertion,  which 
relates  to  Ilesiod  and  Homer,  I  say  on  my  own  authority." 

It  was  only,  therefore,  four  centuries  before  the  Father  of 
History  that  real  idolatry  began  in  Greece.  For  there  could 
be  no  idolatry  properly  so  called,  before  the  gods  had  names 
and  forms,  after  whose  likeness  images  and  idols  could  be 
made  to  be  Worshipped  ;  and  this  is  attributed,  as  a  well-known 
fact,  to  Ilesiod  and  Homer.  To  be  sure,  German  critics  have 
raised  serious  doubts  about  the  personality  of  these  two  poets. 
But  this  does  not  toitch  the  question.  For,  admitting  even 
that  the  critics  are  right,  and  that  the  Iliad,  for  instance,  is  the 
composition  of  a  number  of  rhapsodists,  the  poem,  at  least,  can- 
not be  older  than  the  time  assigned  to  it  by  Herodotus,  since 
he  asserted  it  positively,  on  his  own  authority,  and  he  is  a  bet- 
ter authority  on  this  subject  than  any  modern  critic.  We  do 
not,  however,  for  our  part,  propose  to  take  away  from  Homer 
the  authorship  of  his  masterpiece,  whatever  may  be  said  of  the 
Odyssey,  which  was  certainly  written  later.  It  is  the  indi- 
vidual Homer  to  whom  we  shall  refer,  and  not  unknown  rhap- 
sodists. 

What,  then,  is  the  special  work  which  must  be  assigned  to  the 
great  Ionian  bard  ?  It  is  the  anthropomorphism  of  the  gods. 
He  gave  them  shapes,  forms,  individualities.  He  was  their 
creator,  and  he  gave  them  names.  He  was  thus  the  chief 
author  of  idolatry  in  Greece.  But  were  they  not  derived  from 
previous  myths?  Most  certainly;  at  least  as  far  as  regards 
those  divinities  whose  worship  preceded  the  age  of  the  poets. 
For  it  seems  certain  to  us,  that  the  imagination  of  the  bards 
created  many  of  those  fanciful  beings  whom  the  Hellenes  wor- 
shipped at  a  later  period.  But  the  gods  known  to  the  nation 
before  detailed  biographies  were  written  of  them,  before  "  Ho- 


HEROIC    GEEECE.  333 

mer  invented  their  names  and  forms,"  were  certainly  mythical. 
Of  this  nnmlter,  Apollo  was  undoubtedly  one  of  the  first ;  either 
as  representing  the  sun  issuing  young,  blooming,  and  glorious 
from  the  hancls  of  the  creator,  his  father ;  or  even  with  a  higher 
and  more  sacred  meaning,  as  typifying  the  future  revealer  of 
the  will  of  Jove,  by  his  oracles ;  the  Son  of  Zeus  born  on  earth 
to  restore  our  humanity  to  its  former  ideal ;  for  Apollo  was 
certainly  for  the  Greeks  the  ideal  of  humanity.  We  can  only 
conjecture  this,  as  nothing  can  be  positively  determined  on  the 
subject.  All  we  assert  is,  that  myths,  in  the  sense  we  have 
explained,  were  the  original  foundation  of  the  subsequent  my- 
thological conceptions  of  the  poets.  But  these  brilliant  and 
imaginative  wooers  of  the  Muses  so  completely  obscured  them, 
that  it  is  perfectly  useless,  in  our  age,  to  attempt  to  disem- 
body them.  Their  meaning  known  at  first,  has  entirely  disap- 
peared. The  fair  form  has  for  ever  concealed  the  inner  soul. 

The  result  of  this  baneful  operation  was  to  "  humanize  " 
God  himself — what  we  have  called  just  now  "anthropomor- 
phism." And  not  only  did  God  took  the  shape  of  man,  but  He 
took  also  his  passions  and  vices.  It  is  quite  a  mistake  to  sup- 
pose that  there  was  in  it  something  of  the  great  and  consoling 
truth  of  the  "Incarnation"  in  the  Christian  sense.  In  Greek 
anthropomorphism  there  was  not  even  the  slightest  reminis- 
cence of  this  great  and  holy  dogma,  promised  to  the  first  man 
and  woman  after  their  fall.  Nay  more ;  it  was  a  great  deal 
below  even  that  of  the  avatars  of  Vishnu  in  Hindoo  mythology. 

When  we  read  the  acts  and  the  words  of  the  gods  in  the 
Iliad  of  Homer,  we  are  astonished  at  the  puerility,  wantonness, 
and  gross  immorality  which  the  narrative  supposes.  The  poet, 
so  truly  great,  and  often  sublime,  who  could  represent  the 
whole  of  heaven  grinning  lewdly  at  the  capture  of  Yenus  and 
Mars  in  the  net  of  Yulcan,  had  evidently  lost  the  most  elemen- 
tal ideas  of  religion.  And,  yet,  such  was  the  man  who  was  to 
be  the  religious  teacher  of  a  great  and  most  influential  nation ; 


334  GENTILISM. 

to  lay  the  foundation  of  a  literature  lasting  more  than  twelve 
hundred  years,  and  impregnating  with  its  spirit  so  many  other 
literatures  which  were  to  follow !  The  only  wonder  is,  that 
moral  decomposition  did  not  proceed  more  rapidly ;  and  that 
the  people  trained  by  such  a  master  did  not  die  out  a  thousand 
years  before  it  did  in  fact.  It  is  in  our  opinion  an  evidence 
that  the  Hellenic  nature  during  the  heroic  age  had  imbibed 
principles  of  nobleness,  simplicity,  and  natural  virtue,  able  to 
bear  up  for  a  long  period  of  time  against  the  most  powerful 
incentives  to  corruption. 

YI. 

Yet  writers,  Christian  writers,-  have  maintained  that  the 
Greek  mythology  was  a  great  source  of  culture,  and  literally 
civilized  the  nation.  Prof.  Heeren  writes  as  follows:  "The 
more  a  nation  conceives  its  gods  to  be  like  men,  the  nearer  does 
it  approach  them,  and  the  more  intimately  does  it  live  with 
them.  According  to  the  earliest  views  of  the  Greeks,  the  gods 
often  wandered  among  them,  shared  in  their  business,  requited 
them  with  good  or  ill,  according  to  their  reception,  and  espe- 
cially to  the  number  of  presents  and  sacrifices  with  which  they 
were  honored.  Those  views  decided  the  character  of  religious 
worship,  which  received  from  them,  not  only  its  forms,  but 
also  its  life  and  meaning.  How  could  this  worship  have  re- 
ceived any  other  than  a  cheerful,  friendly  character  ?  The  gods 
were  gratified  with  the  same  pleasures  as  mortals  ....  With 
such  conceptions,  how  could  their  holidays  have  been  other- 
wise than  joyous  ones  ?  And  as  their  joy  was  expressed  by 
dance  and  song,  both  of  these  necessarily  became  constituent 
parts  of  their  religious  festivals. 

"  It  is  another  question  :  "What  influence  must  such  a  relig- 
ion have  had  on  the  morals  of  the  nation  ?  The  gods  were, 
by  no  means,  represented  as  pure  moral  beings,  but  as  beings 


HEROIC    GEEECE.  335 

possessed  of  all  human  passions  and  weaknesses.  But,  at  the 
same  time,  the  Greeks  never  entertained  the  idea  that  their 
divinities  were  to  be  held  up  as  models  of  virtue  ;  and  hence 
the  injury  done  to  morality  by  such  a  religion,  however  warmly 
the  philosophers  afterwards  spoke  against  it,  could  hardly  have 
been  so  great  as  we,  with  our  prepossessions,  should  have  at 
first  imagined.  If  it  was  not  declared  a  duty  to  become  like 
the  gods,  no  excuse  for  the  imitation  could  be  drawn  from  the 
faults  and  crimes  attributed  to  them 

"  By  the  transformation  of  the  Grecian  divinities  into  moral 
agents,  an  infinite  field  was  open  for  poetic  invention.  By 
becoming  human,  the  gods  became  peculiarly  beings  for  the 

poets The  great  characteristics  of  human  nature  were 

expressed  in  them ;  they  were  exhibited  as  so  many  definite 
archetypes.  The  poet  might  relate  of  them  whatever  he  pleased, 
but  he  was  never  permitted  to  alter  the  original  characters. 
....  Thus  the  popular  religion  of  the  Greeks  was  thoroughly 
poetical.  There  is  no  need  of  a  long  argument  to  show  that 
it  also  decided  the  character  of  Grecian  art,  by  affording  an 
inexhaustible  supply  of  subjects." 

The  main  idea  contained  in  these  reflections  is  that  Hel- 
lenic polytheism  became  a  source  of  true  culture  for  the  na- 
tion, because  from  it  naturally  followed  cheerful  festivals,  a 
well-spring  of  poetical  invention,  and  a  high  scope  of  art ;  yet 
as  true  culture  cannot  be  supposed  without  morality,  a  word 
is  said  to  excuse  the  real  profligacy  of  the  religion.  We  are 
glad  to  meet  such  a  thesis  expressed  in  such  terms,  because  the 
true  idea  of  civilization  and  progress  enters  deeply  into  our 
subject,  and  we  can  find  no  better  opportunity  to  treat  of  it. 
Already,  in  a  previous  chapter,  we  have  remarked  that  the 
period  of  the  introduction  of  real  idolatry  in  India,  in  Egypt, 
and  in  Greece,  was  an  epoch  of  great  material  refinement,  and 
of  an  immense  development  of  the  fine  arts.  We  will  grant, 

therefore,  to  Professor  Heeren,  and  to- those  who  think  with  him, 
23 


336  GEXTILISM. 

more  than  they  ask,  since  we  generalize  the  phenomenon  and 
show  its  universality  and  its  almost  ubiquitous  extension.  In 
Hindostan,  in  Egypt,  in  Greece,  later  in  Italy,  as  soon  as  real 
idolatrous  polytheism  appears,  immense  and  splendid  buildings 
are  constructed,  prodigious  sculptures,  showing  a  rich  invention 
and  a  most  artistic  taste,  cover  immense  walls,  where  their  stu- 
pendous relics  still- astonish  the  traveller.  "We  learn  from  his- 
tory that,  at  the  same  epoch,  extraordinary  festivals  and  sacri- 
fices often  took  place,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  exuberant  joy  of 
innumerable  multitudes ;  and  the  universal  myth  of  Bacchus, 
Dionysus,  or  whatever  name  that  god  was  known  by  along  the 
Ganges  and  the  Nile,  constituted  the  inspiration  of  this  uproar- 
ious hilarity.  Long  and  splendid  poems,  likewise,  with  lyric 
songs  and  musical  harmony,  reflect  on  those  ages  a  vivid  light 
of  poetry  and  art.  Is  not,  after  all,  polytheism  a  glorious 
thing  for  our  sad  and  down-trodden  humanity  ?  What  if 
morality  suffers  a  little  ?  It  is  fortunately  inscribed  in  the 
heart,  and  exterior  religion  has  nothing  to  do  with  it.  This 
is,  we  think,  the  thought  6f  Professor  Heeren  and  of  his  school, 
and  we  have  only  expressed  it  in  stronger  terms  than  any  one 
of  them  has  ventured  to  do. 

There  is  no  doubt  that,  when  the  principle  of  virtue  is 
uprooted,  the  day  has  come  for  the  triumph  of  the  senses. 
But  to  eulogize  a  religion  precisely  because  it  favors  the  latter 
at  the  expense  of  the  former,  is  certainly  a  strange  position  for 
a  Christian  to  take.  Yet  it  is  exactly  what  the  above  quotation 
does.  Joy,  poetry,  and  art  are  very  fine  words;  but  they  re- 
quire great  qualification  in  order  to  be  estimated  at  their  true 
worth.  Not  every  kind  of  joy  means  happiness ;  not  every  kind 
of  poetry  commends  itself  to  the  human  conscience  ;  art  itself 
is  a  corrupter  when  the  hand  that  holds  the  chisel  or  the  brush  is 
impure ;  and  as  all  contributes  to  what  is  called  culture  or  civil- 
ization, we  may  infer  that  not  everything  bearing  that  name  de- 
serves admiration,  the  same  as  not  everything  that  glitters  is  gold. 


HEROIC    GREECE.  337 

A  nation  fed  only  on  these  husks  could  not  but  end  in 
rottenness,  because  all  these  sources  of  culture  are  material, 
sensual,  promotive  of  passion  and  chiefly  of  lust ;  and  for  true 
progress  man  requires  that  his  immoital  soul  should  be  the  first 
cultivated,  and  that  her  mastership  over  the  senses  should  be  at 
all  times  vindicated.  When  the  true  philosophers,  who  appeared 
long  after  the  beginning  of  this  intoxicating  period  of  poetry 
and  art,  perceived  the  false  direction  that  the  progress  of  the" 
nation  had  taken,  they  tried  to  bring  it  back  to  first  principles. 
The  school  of  Socrates  and  of  Plato,  in  particular,  insisted  on 
ethics,  and  on  the  superiority  of  the  spiritual  and  intellectual 
part  of  man  over  the  sensible  and  perishable  one.  But  it  was 
already  too  late ;  so  late,  in  fact,  that  even  the  best  among 
them  did  not  see  the  greatest  danger  for  the  future,  and  the 
real  cause  of  the  degeneracy  which  was  already,  in  their  time, 
but  too  apparent.  They  attributed  it  chiefly  to  the  Sophists, 
as  they  called  them  ;  and  they  thought  that  the  peril  lay  prin- 
cipally in  an  unbridled  rationalism,  which  already  denied  the 
most  clear  principles  of  sound  philosophy.  They  themselves 
partook,  to  a  great  degree,  of  the  universal  artistic  fanaticism. 
They  were  Greeks,  and  lovers  of  the  "  beautiful."  And  al- 
though Plato  made  a  sublime  distinction  between  Venus 
Urania  and  the  voluptuous  mother  of  Cupid,  his  distinction 
was,  unfortunately,  impotent  against  moral  covruption,  and 
could  not  stop  it  in  its  devastating  career.  Hence,  even 
amongst  ourselves  "Platonic  love"  has  become  synonymous 
with  "  impossible  love,"  and  the  object  of  a  great  deal  of 
harmless  ridicule. 

But,  in  spite  of  this  moral  blindness,  the  philosophers  of 
whom  we  speak  saw  that  the  danger  of  the  nation  lay  in  the 
neglect  of  the  immortal  part  of  «nan.  And  they  endeavored 
to  convince  their  countrymen  that  the  tendency  of  such  neglect 
was  to  pure  materialism,  and,  consequently,  to  brutalization,  if 
we  may  be  allowed  to  coin  a  word.  But  what  was  the  cause 


338  GEXTILISM. 

of  it  ?  Not  alone  the  insane  rationalism  of  the  Sophists ;  not. 
alone  the  ridiculous  pretensions  of  the  dialectitians,  who  prom- 
ised to  teach  young  men  how  to  "  make  the  worse  appear  the  bet- 
ter," or  "  the  better  appear  the  worse  ;"  but  originally,  and  at  all 
times,  and  chiefly,  the  predominance  given  to  the  senses  by 
the  prevailing  materialistic  polytheism.  And  this  had  cer- 
tainly arisen  from  degrading  the  gods  to  the  level  of  humanity, 
endowing  them  with  the  same  aims,  and  passions,  and  vices ; 
in  short,  from  the  pure  and  simple  "  anthropomorphism  "  of  the 
religion.  Even  had  the  philosophers  perceived  this,  they  would 
not  have  dared  to  assert  it  openly.  They  had  to  respect  the 
"  religion  of  the  State."  It  was  one  of  the  great  accusations 
against  Socrates  that  he  believed  in  other  gods  than  "  those  of 
the  State."  Happy  he  if,  before  drinking  the  hemlock,  he  had 
openly  acknowledged  the  issue  between  himself  and  his  accus- 
ers, and  announced  that  the  "gods  of  the  State"  were  immoral 
beings,  unworthy  not  only  of  adoration,  but  of  the  most  com- 
mon respect !  He  would  have  died  a  martyr  to  the  doctrine 
of  the  true  and  living  God  !  Plato,  in  his  "  Cratylus,"  shows 
openly  enough  that  this  was  in  his  mind ;  yet  neither  he,  nor 
Socrates  his  master,  dared  openly  avow  it. 

And,  to  speak  only  of  the  language  of  art  and  literature,  leav- 
ing aside  that  of  religion,  what  could  be  the  culture  promoted 
by  Greek  art  and  poetry  ?  The  answer  is  plain  :  that  of  the 
beautiful.  But  which  beautiful  ?  only  the  material  and  sensi- 
ble— there  can  be  no  other  answer.  Hence,  all  the  object  the 
Hellenes  could  aim  at  was  to  depict,  either  on  canvas,  or  in 
marble  and  bronze,  or  in  imperishable  verse,  the  exterior  ob- 
jects of  creation,  chiefly  the  noble  or  soft  features  of  man  and 
woman.  This  was  for  them  the  "  ideal "  of  humanity ;  and  in 
this  they  certainly  reached  perfection.  No  other  people,  since 
their  time,  has  ever  been  able  to  attain  such  perfection  of 
aesthetic  beauty  in  art,  as  did  the  Greeks.  But  the  "  ideal "  of 
human  beauty  must  comprise  more  than  the  form.  It  must 


HEROIC    GREECE.  339 

reach  the  soul  and  depict  the  passions.  "What  ideal  of  the 
kind  could  there  be  for  the  Greeks  ?  No  higher  one  certainly 
than  that  of  the  gods.  Even  in  the  supposition  of  Prof. 
Heeren,  that  they  were  never  intended  to  be  imitated  morally 
— a  proposition  we  will  shortly  discuss — at  least  their  passions, 
either  noble  or  vile,  were  the  true  "  ideal "  of  painter,  acxdptor, 
and  poet  among  the  Greeks.  Could  this  be  a  high  "  ideal  ?" 
Let  any  man,  if  he  be  a  Christian  at  ah1,  peruse  the  greatest 
work  of  Homer,  the  Iliad,  to  satisfy  himself  on  this  point,  and 
we  have  no  fear  of  the  answer  he  will  return.  But  the  ad- 
mirers of  the  beautiful  in  the  Hellenic  sense,  will  say  that  a 
reader  of  the  Iliad  in  our  days  ought  to  pass  lightly  over  the 
passages  where  the  gods  are  described — "  It  is  too  childish  to 
be  adverted  to/'  We  insist  that  these  very  passages  ought 
to  be  seriously  read  and  studied,  if  we  wish  to  know  what  was 
the  real  "  ideal "  of  Hellenic  art  and  poetry,  since  this  is  the 
question. 

And  the  writers  we  now  oppose  are  Christian  me*,  who 
know  full  well  what  has  been,  since  Christianity,  the. "  ideal ?' 
of  our  painters,  sculptors,  and  poets.  They  have  no  doubt 
stood  often  in  admiration  before  their  master-pieces ;  they  have 
no  doubt  felt,  and  have  probably  themselves  not  been  wholly 
insensible  to,  the  heavenly  inspirations  which  gave  them  birth. 
What  if  the  human  shape,  under  their  brush,  their  chisel,  or 
their  pen,  is  not  depicted  with  such  anatomical  perfection  as  dis- 
tinguished the  works  of  Phidias,  or  Polygnotus,  or  Praxiteles,  or 
Homer  ?  The  divine  soul  that  breathes  everywhere  in  modern 
productions,  shows  how  infinitely  higher  is  the  Christian  ideal 
than  the  pagan  one  ;  and  to  attribute  to  the  works  of  antiquity 
the  Hellenic  culture  and  civilization  is,  after  all,  merely  to  say 
that  both  must  have  been  infinitely  under  our  own,  and  that 
the  civilization  they  brought  with  them  was  an  inferior  one. 
It  must  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  "  love  of  the  beautiful " 
— culture  consequently  among  the  Greeks — did  not  come  from 


340  GENTILISM. 

their  religion ;  but,  rather,  that  their  religion,  all  material  and 
sensual  as  it  was,  came  from  their  love  of  the  "  sensible  beauti- 
ful," which  must  have  been  a  characteristic  of  the  race  before 
their  polytheism.  Bo'h  were  perhaps  developed  at  once.  But 
their  absurd  religion  had  very  little  to  do  with  the  love  they  felt 
for  the  beautiful.  That  was  in  them  when  they  were  born. 

One  characteristic,  however,  of  their  art  must  be  ascribed  to 
their  religion,  their  fondness,  namely,  for  the  nude  human 
forms.  And  this  deserves  at  least  a  passing  notice. 

It  is,  we  think,  Herodotus  who  remarks  that  the  Eastern 
nations,  the  Persians  particularly,  felt  it  a  shame,  even  in  men, 
to  let  any  part  of  their  body  appear,  except  the  face  and  hands ; 
but  that  the  Greeks  felt  no  such  scruple  on  the  subject.  This 
is  the  thought.  We  have  forgotten  the  precise  words.  The 
remark  is  an  important  one,  as  it  shows  that  for  primitive  man 
the  body  was  a  mysterious  temple  to  be  kept  constantly  in  the 
"  shade  of  the  sacred  enclosures  and  the  groves,"  as  they  spoke 
at  tha§  time.  The  cynics  of  our  days  treat  the  question  too 
flippantly,  when  they  object,  that  covering,  clothes  consequent- 
ly, are  required  in  cold  climates,  not  in  warm,  and  still  less  in 
hot  ones ;  and  when  they  point  triumphantly  to  the  different 
clothing  of  the  savages  living  under  the  tropics  from  the  Esqui- 
maux who  live  within  the  Arctic  circle.  This  may  be  true  of 
savages  who  have  lost  the  sense  of  all  the  mysteries  with  which 
our  humanity  is  sacredly  surrounded.  We  have,  only,  in  reply, 
to  point  to  the  Syrians,  Persians,  Arabs,  Indians,  and  Chinese, 
who  invariably,  in  the  hottest  weather,  and  in  their  own  burn- 
ing climes,  cover  their  bodies  with  what  may  appear  to  be  a 
superfluous  and  even  ridiculous  care.  And  it  is  not  woman  only 
who  is  always  religiously  covered,  but  in  those  countries  man 
himself  would  feel  it  a  shame,  as  Herodotus  said  more  than 
twenty  centuries  ago,  to  let  any  part  of  his  body  appear  except 
his  face  and  hands.  This  shows  that  the  care  with  which  women 
are  veilecT  is  not,  as  people  somewhat  carelessly  conclude,  the 


HEEOIC    GREECE.  341 

effect  of  an  unnatural  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  men ;  but 
that  horror  of  nudity  is  in  the  blood  of  those  races  who  seem 
still  to  possess  the  modesty  which  became  a  part  of  human 
nature  after  the  fall.  And  it  originated  in  the  consciousness 
of  the  corruption  which  had  seized  our  senses ;  so  that  we  could 
no  more  be  allowed  the  simple  freedom  of  look  enjoyed  during 
the  period  of  innocence.  For  savages  the  danger  is  not  so 
great,  as  their  senses  even,  and  especially  their  imagination,  are 
blunted  by  their  want  of  intellectual  development.  But  cul- 
tivated man  is  bound  by  the  laws  of  decency. 

The  Hellenes  were  the  first  of  polished  nations  who,  on  ac- 
count of  their  love  of  the  beautiful,  threw  aside  the  restraint 
imposed  by  modesty ;  and,  not  only  the  wrestler,  the  athlete, 
and  the  racer,  laid  aside  their  dress  to  give,  in  the  open  day,  an 
exhibition  of  their  respective  arts,  enhanced  by  the  sight  of 
their  natural  beauty ;  but  woman  herself,  at  least  in  the  public 
squares  of  Sparta,  shared  with  man  the  odious  privilege  of 
barefacedness. 

Religion  certainly  was,  in  great  measure,  the  cause  of  this 
remarkable  difference  between  the  Hellenes  and  other  ancient 
nations.  We  cannot  say,  however,  that  tfiey  stood  alone  in  this 
unenviable  peculiarity.  The  Egyptians  had  even  anticipated 
them  ;  among  whom  the  dancing-girls  and  female  musicians 
were,  perhaps,  the  first  to  break  through  the  rules  of  decency. 
We  say  that  religion — yes,  the  religion  of  Homer  and  his  fol- 
lowers— was  the  chief  cause  of  the  immodesty  of  the  Greeks ; 
since,  after  him,  the  gods  could  no  more  be  represented  in 
the  severely  modest  garb  of  ancient  statues  ;  but  sculptors  and 
painters  were  at  liberty  to  picture  them  as  simple  men  and 
women  that  they  were.  It  is  the  custom,  on  this  subject,  to 
congratulate  the  Greeks  on  having  dared  to  "  break  through 
the  dead  formulas  of  old  myths,"  by  giving  to  their  gods  the 
freedom  of  movement  and  the  elegance  of  form  which  the 
"  ideal  of  humanity  "  requires.  We  insist  upon  it  again,  that 


342  GEXTILISM. 

by  "breaking  through  the  dead  formulas  of  myths,"  they 
merely  renounced  all  participation  in  the  religious  knowledge 
contained  originally  in  the  myths ;  and  they  became,  as  the 
old  Egyptian  priest  says  in  the  Timseus,  "  only  children,  with- 
out any  tradition  of  old  times."  As  to  giving  to  the  gods 
"  freedom  of  movement  and  elegance  of  form,"  they  merely 
placed  them  naked  under  the  eyes  of  all ;  and  so  accus- 
tomed themselves  to  lose  all  feelings  of  modesty  with  respect 
to  their  own  bodies  and  to  that  of  others. 

And  we  ought  not  to  imagine  that,  for  them,  everything 
was  so  enchanting,  so  harmonious,  so  well-proportioned,  that 
they  could  look  on  the  lines,  as  on  so  many  beautiful  geomet- 
rical or  even  astronomical  figures,  without  any  reference  to 
the  senses.  To  think  thus  would  be  to  forget,  or  belie,  entirely 
human  nature.  Any  one  who  has  read  the  productions  of 
even  old  Greek  authors,  who  were  far  more  chaste  than  those 
who  succeeded  them  in  after  ages,  knows  full  well  how  intense 
in  them  was,  what  we  call  in  modern  tongue,  sensuality.  It 
inspires  nearly  every  line  of  their  writings. 

The  guilt  of  the  Hell«mes  on  this  subject  was  not  con- 
fined to  their  own  age  and  country.  From  them  the  evil 
spread  through  all  European  nations,  and,  perhaps,  for  all 
time.  0It  is  from  them  that  the  Romans,  so  grave  at  first,  so 
chaste,  so  thoroughly  masters  over  their  senses,  became,  in 
time,  through  Grecian  art,  poetry,  and  religious  festivals,  ar- 
dent followers  of  Epicurus,  altogether  given  to  sensual  pleasures, 
great  admirers  of  nudity,  and,  at  last,  thoroughly  vicious  and 
degraded.  It  is  from  them  that  modern  nations  have  imbibed 
the  same  spirit ;  so  that  there  is  scarcely  .any  considerable 
art-collection  without  Grecian  nudities.  And  we  have  the 
strange  spectacle,  everywhere  in  Europe,  of  Christian  people 
collecting  in  the  same  edifices  sacred  to  art,  the  sublime  and 
pure  pictures  and  statues  inspired  by  the  virtues  of  Faith  and 
Chastity,  together  with  base  imitations  of  the  universal  subjects 


HEEOIC    GREECE.  343 

treated  by  old  Greek  painters  and  sculptors.  From  this,  like- 
wise, the  whole  of  Europe  rejected,  as  ridiculous,  the  solemn 
garb  of  eastern  men  and  women,  so  well  adapted  to  their  relig- 
ion and  climate,  and  made  the  alluring  sight  of  sensual,  living 
beauty  the  constant  theme  of  fashion,  and,  we  may  say,  the 
chief  object  of  every  social  gathering. 

In  attributing  to  the  far-Orient  solemnity  of  dress  and  mod- 
esty of  bearing,  we  >:e  aware  that  our  statement  requires  some 
qualification.  It  was,  certainly,  the  rule ;  but  there  have  been 
exceptions.  Our  readers  will  remember  our  description  of  the 
rock  temples  of  the  neighborhood  of  Bombay,  where  edifices, 
dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Siva,  shock  the  sight  of  the  least 
scrupulous  travellers  by  the  spectacle  of  intolerable  obscenities. 
We  explained,  at  the  time,  the  cause  of  so  extraordinary  a 
phenomenon. 

YIL 

The  religion  of  the  Hellenes — idolatrous  polytheism — can- 
not, therefore,  be  said  to  have  been  for  them  a  source  of  cul- 
ture, except  in  the  sense  of  material,  sensual  culture ;  and,  con- 
sequently, could  not  introduce  true  civilization,  but  only  a 
false  glitter  covering  real  corruption.  Yet  it  is  insisted  upon 
that,  "  as  it  was  not  declared  a  duty  to  the  Greeks  to  become 
like  the  gods,  no  excuse  for  following  their  example  could  be 
drawn  from  the  faults  and  crimes  attributed  to  them.  And, 
moreover,  that  these  stories  were  esteemed,  even  by  the  vulgar, 
only  as  poetic  inventions,  and  there  was  little  concern  about 
their  truth  or  their  want  of  truth.  There  existed,  independ- 
ently of  those  tales,  the  fear  of  the  gods  as  higher  beings  who, 
on  the  whole,  desired  excellence,  and  abhorred,  and  some- 
times punished,  crime.  This  punishment  was  inflicted  in  this 
world,  etc." 

The  obligation  to  imitate  God  was  not,  certainly,  so  posi- 


344  .          GENTILISM. 

lively  enjoined  as  a  positive  precept  on  the  Greeks  as  it  is  on 
Christians,  although,  if  we  remember  rightly,  it  was  a  duty  on 
which  great  stress  was  laid  by  one  of  the  seven  wise  men. 
Yet  the  principles  .of  morality  are  so  strict  and  universal  that, 
in  the  opinion  of  all  nations,  they  must  extend  to  their  gods 
if  they  are  obligatory  on  man,  and  any  violation  of  them  by 
superior  beings  cannot  but  weaken,  nay,  deaden  the  human 
conscience.  Even  in  the  case  of  those  who  do  not  know  that 
they  are  bound  to  imitate  God,  at  least  this  imitation  cannot 
be  a  crime ;  and  every  one,  even  the  most  rude  and  uncul- 
tivated, cannot  but  flatter  himself  that  he  has  not  been  guilty 
of  so  heinous  an  offense,  since  he  has  but  followed  the  example 
of  higher  beings,  a  great  deal  more  perfect  than,  man  can  be. 
Temptation  is  always  more  irresistible  to  weak  humanity  than 
to  those  who  share  in  divine  privileges  and  honors ;  and  even 
in  the  opinion  of  moralists,  temptation,  if  violent,  diminishes 
the  responsibility  and  renders  the  fault  more  excusable. 

That  these  reflections  acted  on  the  pagan  Greeks  cannot  be 
denied  by  any  one  acquainted  with  the  nation.  Aristophanes 
has  clearly  expressed  it  in  his  "  Clouds,"  in  the  discussion  be- 
tween the  two  strange  personages  called  Aoyof  diicaiog  and  ddi/tog. 
The  extent  to  which  the  thought  influenced  the  moral  acts  of 
the  people  cannot  be  absolutely  estimated,  because  our  con- 
science, from  which  we  are  inclined  to  form  our  judgment,  is 
far  more  instructed  and  sensitive  than  that  of  pagans  could  be ; 
yet  it  is  certain  that  conscience  was  not  dead  within  them,  and 
that,  until  they  had  practically  destroyed  it  by  their  excesses, 
it  spoke  within  them.  Naturally  their  minds  tried  to  find  ex- 
cuses for  the  gratification  of  their  passions  ;  and,  in  such  cases, 
no  doubt  the  example  of  the  gods  was  one  of  the  most  success- 
ful arguments  to  suppress  every  qualm  of  conscience  which 
might  arise.  That  those  stories  were  supposed,  even  by  the 
vulgar,  to  be  only  poetic  inventions,  we  are  far  from  admitting. 
It  is  more  probable  that  most  of  those  who  believed  really  in 


HEROIC    GREECE.  345 

the  gods  did  not  doubt  the  genuineness  of  the  stories.  Had 
they  not  the  authority  of  Homer  ?  And  was  not  Homer  a 
theologian,  as  well  as  an  historian,  geographer,  and  poet  ? 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  in  the  innermost  depths  of 
the  Grecian  soul,  the  fear — not  of  the  gods,  but — of  God,  spoke 
even  louder  than  the  sophism  we  are  now  discussing ;  and  that, 
on  this  account,  they  were  morally  guilty  when  they  sinned  in 
imitating  their  gods.  Yet  every  one  must  admit,  that,  in  their 
case,  conscience  ought  to  have  been  much  less  susceptible  when 
the  fear  of  God  spoke  on  the  one  side,  and  the  example  of  the 
gods  drew  them  on  the  other. 

AVe  ought  not  to  be  surprised,  therefore,  that  moral  corrup- 
tion increased  fearfully  from  the  age  of  Pericles  downward. 
The  comedies  of  Aristophanes  are  a  sufficient  proof  of  it,  and  if 
the  works  of  other  dramatists,  his  contemporaries,  had  not  per- 
ished, we  should  probably  possess  a  much  more  powerful  proof 
of  the  assertion.  Independently  of  any  other  testimony,  the 
universality  of  a  single  open  and  degrading  passion,  such  as  is 
well  known  to  those  acquainted  with  Greek  literature,  would 
sufficiently  attest  our  assertion.  The  Grecian  is  the  only  nation 
which  did  not  blush  to  avow  it.  And  when  the  sense  of  the 
most  common  decency  is  so  openly  outraged  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  society  is  thoroughly  degraded,  in  spite  of  ex- 
terior appearances.  It  took  'a  long  time,  however,  to  disor- 
ganize everything;  because  with  such  openly  avowed  vices, 
there  was  always  in  the  nation  a  great  activity  of  mind,  and  a 
strong  development  of  physical  exertion  by  colonization  and 
trade.  These  saved  the  Greeks  for  many  ages.  They  were 
too  busy  for  society  to  fall  into  speedy  decomposition.  And 
this  also  accounts  for  the  preservation  and  great  apparent  pro- 
gress of  some  modern  nations  in  the  midst  of  the  most  rapidly 
disorganizing  corruption.  There  was,  besides,  in  Hellenic  man- 
ners, in  spite  of  their  rationalism,  and  at  times  cynic  disposi- 
tion, a  great  simplicity,  moderation,  and  opposition  to  excess, 


346  GENTILISM. 

which  preserved  their  correct  taste  and  their  artistic  perfection 
for  long  ages  after  the  decadency  began.  This  simplicity  of 
manners,  which  continued  chiefly  in  their  diet  and  apparel,  and 
preserved  them  at  all  times  from  the  excesses  of  Roman  patri- 
cians under  the  Empire,  was  certainly  derived  from  the  golden 
guilelessness  of  the  heroic  age,  whose  touching  stories  of  Cleobis 
and  Biton,  as  related  by  Solon  to  Croesus  (Herod.,  i.,  31) ;  of 
the  twin  sons  of  Aristodemus,  King  of  Sparta  (vi.,  52),  and 
many  others  found  in  ancient  authors,  were  so  well  calculated 
to  refine  and  ennoble  the  character  of  the  people.  The  simple 
Doric  customs  of  the  primitive  Spartans,  whom  Lycurgus 
spoiled  later  by  his  barbarous  laws  (vi.,  58,  59,  60,)  explain  also 
the  long-continuance  of  that  nation,  in  spite  of  such  loose  mo- 
rality. For  it  is  a  fact  strongly  corroborative  of  what  we  aim 
at  demonstrating,  that  the  farther  back  we  go  in  the  history  of 
man,  the  higher  morality  do  we  find  in  human  society  united 
with  guilelessness,  a  noble  simplicity,  and,  in  spite  of  ignorance 
of  books,  profounder  appreciation  of  the  mysteries  surround- 
ing God  and  man.  We  find  also  a  strong  faith,  strong  in 
the  Creator  and  ruler  of  the  universe,  a  thorough  conviction  of 
His  incomprehensibility  as  a  basis  of  adoration  and  worship,  a 
dependence  on  Him  at  all  the  moments  of  their  life,  a  clear 
perception  of  the  superiority  of  the  soul  over  the  body,  a  con- 
tempt for  the  flimsy  glitter  of  merely  exterior  appearances,  and 
the  kneenest  relish  of  whatever  is  substantial  and  worthy  of 
human  aim.  Hence  food,  dj-ess,  dwelling,  all  the  surroundings 
of  a  patriarchal  sage,  show  the  solid  greatness  of  the  true  master 
of  creation ;  but  his  submission  to  the  ineifable  laws  of  God, 
which  are  written  in  his  heart,  and  impressed  on  his  nature  to 
the  very  marrow  of  his  bones,  proves  his  acquaintance  with  the 
higher  world  whence  he  came  and  where  he  is  to  go  back.  In 
the  presence  of  such  facts,  who  dares  speak  of  the  brute  as  the 
progenitor  of  man  ?  Is  it  not  true,  that  in  the  first  Brahmins 
of  India,  in  the  first  inhabitants  of  Ethiopia  and  Egypt,  in  the 


HEEOIC    GEEECE.  347 

primitive  Bactrians,  in  the  Hellenes  of  the  heroic  age,  as  well 
— although  in  a  far  superior  degree — as  in  the  Hebrew  patri- 
archs, the  same  spectacle  is  offered  us  of  time  heroes,  real  sages, 
great  souls  lodged  in  noble  bodies,  living  on  earth  as  in  a  dwell- 
ing of  a  few  days,  yet  with  all  the  simple  enjoyments  that  the 
earth  can  bestow  on  mortals  ?  If  they  were  obliged,  in  burning 
climes,  to  dwell  hi  caves,  they  adorned  those  stupendous  exca- 
vations with  all  the  devices  of  art,  which  the  traveller  admires 
still  iu  the  far-Orient.  If  flocks  fed  them,  it  was  in  immense 
droves  of  splendid  cattle  that  they  showed  their  wealth.  If 
many  of  them  dwelt  in  tents,  it  was  to  be  more  free  to  move  on 
a  free  earth;  and  to  show  they  were  masters  of  the  immense 
pastures  where  they  could  roam  at  will.  Who  can  suppose 
that  in  all  these  circumstances  there  are  proofs  of  a  low,  grov- 
elling spirit  akin  to  that  of  the  brute  ?  Who  can  see  there 
the  mere  animal  emerging  into  consciousness  ?  But  they  pre- 
tend that  the  "primitive"  man  of  whom  they  speak,  lived 
many  ages  before  the  epoch  we  describe ;  that,  in  the  patriarchal 
period,  man  had  already  reached  a  high  degree  of  civilization ; 
but  it  was  by  his  own  efforts  and  by  many  gradual  steps  that  it 
had  been  attained.  How  is  it  then,  that,  having  reached  such  a 
height  of  civilization,  he  began  immediately  to  retrograde  as 

we  have  shown  he  did  ?    If  man's  culture  came  from  himself, 

' 

and  if  it  is  his  law  to  develop  it,  why  did  he  stop  at  all,  and  did 
he  not  go  on  constantly  improving  ?  For  in  the  theory  we 
allude  to,  man  is  left  to  himself,  and  is  perfectly  able  to  take 
care  of  himself.  He  can  have  no  master,  but  his  own  master- 
ship is  sure.  We  answer  that  his  own  mastership  is  not  sure, 
as  history  proves  abundantly;  and  if  his  privileges  are  gifts 
from  a  superior  master,  as  we  contend,  as  the  generality  of 
men  have  always  believed  and  will,  it  is  certain,  continue  to 
believe,  then  what  we  assert  is  the  only  rational  hypothesis. 
Let  them  prove  first  that  immense  series  of  unsuccessful  at- 
tempts ending  in  positive  results  at  last ;  let  them  prove  their 


348  GENTILISM. 

suppositions  by  stronger  arguments  than  those  they  use  ;  let 
them  bring  out  facts  better  ascertained  and  more  telling  on  the 
question.  Their  great  discoveries  can  be  explained  in  a  hun- 
dred ways  better  than  the  one  they  assume ;  yet  we  may  say 
that  they  have  not  placed  yet  on  a  solid  footing  the  first  step 
in  their  long  progress  of  pretended  demonstrations,  and  the 
origin  and  change  of  species  is  yet  as  great  a  mystery  as  when 
they  began  their  researches ;  at  least  many  eminent  naturalists, 
not  over-loaded  with  Christian  scruples,  refuge  yet  to  adopt 
their  opinion.  And  we  may  confidently  afBrm  that  to  satisfy 
all  conscientious  doubts  about  it,  to  convince  of  its  truth  the 
many  learned  men  in  natural  sciences  who  remain*  incredulous, 
they  will  have  to  perfect  their  system,  enter  boldly  their  labo- 
ratories, and  with  the  help  of  all  the  modern  improvements  and 
apparatus,  which  they  know  so  well  how  to  use,  produce  at  last 
a  new'  species  whose  existence  cannot  be  gainsaid,  and  thus 
renew  the  old  prodigies  attributed  to  their  first  ancestor,  the 
Caucasian  Prometheus.  Until  that  time  we  are  afraid  their 
theories  will  remain  mere  speculations,  and  people  at  last  may 
turn  them  into  merited  ridicule. 


YIIL 

• 

From  this  necessary  digression  we  return  to  the  direct  treat- 
ment of  our  subject.  Hellenic  polytheism,  we  saw,  became 
positive  idolatry,  that  is,  the  worship  of  "  idols,"  of  "  the 
works  of  man."  And  if  this  was  true  of  any  country,  it  was 
true  of  Greece.  The  description  of  the  carpenter  who,  accord- 
ing to  the  inspired  writer,  selects  the  most  useless  part  of  a 
piece  of  wood  to  make  a  god  of  it,  is  generally  considered  as 
an  ironical  exaggeration.  But  it  is  not  so.  It  was  strictly  true. 

Already  long  before,  in  Egypt,  where  art  was  much  less  cul- 
tivated for  its  own  sake,  where  the  myth  remained  always 


HEROIC    GEEECE.  349 

much  more  pre-eminent  than  in  Greece,  we  find  this  low  and 
absurd  kind  of  idolatry  in  full  vogue,  in  the  most  strict  sense, 
so  as  really  to  astonish  the  reader.  We  have  the  proof  of  it  in 
Herodotus,  and  no  one  that  we  know  has  quoted  the  remark- 
able passage.  Yet  it  deserves,  indeed,  to  be  quoted.  It  is 
taken  from  Euterpe,  172  : 

"Apries  being  dethroned,  Amasis,  who  was  of  the  Saitic 
district,  reigned  in  his  stead  ;  the  name  of  the  city  from  which 
he  came  was  Siuph.  At  first  the  Egyptians  despised  him,  as 
having  been  formerly  a  private  person,  and  of  no  illustrious 
family  ;  but  he  conciliated  them  by  his  address  and  his  want  of. 
stateliness.  He  had  an  infinite  number  of  objects  of  art,  and 
among  them  a  golden  foot-pan,  in  which  Amasis  himself  and 
all  his  guests  were  accustomed  to  wash  their  feet.  Having 
afterwards  broken  this  in  pieces,  he  made  from  it  the  statue  of 
a  god,  and  placed  it  in  the  most  conspicuous  part  of  the  city. 
Directly  the  Egyptians,  flocking  to  the  image,  paid  it  the 
greatest  reverence.  As  soon  as  Amasis  was  informed  of  the 
success  of  tlie  new  worship,  he  called  the  Egyptians  together, 
and  thus  explained  the  matter  to  them  :  '  The  statue  was  made 
out  of  the  foot-pan  in  which  the  Egyptians  formerly  vomited 
and  washed  their  feet ;  yet  since  it  had  been  made  a  god,  they 
paid  it  an  unbounded  respect.  Why  not,'  he  proceeded  to  say, 
'  act  towards  him  as  they  did  toward  the  foot-pan  f  He  was, 
indeed,  before  a  private  person,  yet  he  had  become  their  king, 
and  they  ought,  therefore,  to  honor  and  respect  him  as  such.' 
This  artifice  won  completely  the  Egypliaus  over  to  him  ;  and 
from  henceforth  they  obeyed  his  decrees  and  respected  him  as 
their  king." 

Undoubtedly,  if  the  Egyptians  had  not  believed  that  a 
change  had  taken  place  in, the  foot-pan,  by  being  made  the 
statue  of  a  god,  and  probably  by  receiving  the  usual  rites  of 
consecration,  the  ingenious  device  of  Amasis  would  have  been 
altogether  lost  on  them.  But  what  change  could  be  supposed 


350  GENTILISM. 

to  have  happened  when  the  image  of  a  god  was  made,  and 
chiefly  after  it  had  received  consecration  ?  The  theory  of 
lamblichus,  who  lived  much  later,  it  is  true,  but  whose  object 
was  to  prove  that  idolatry  was  at  all  times  holy,  reasonable, 
and  true,  that  theory  so  strange  to  us,  yet  so  natural  to  a  pagan, 
must  have  been  at  the  bottom  of  the  reasoning  faculty  of  all 
idolaters,  when  they  prostrated  themselves  before  their  images, 
lamblichus  asserted  that  the  god  himself,  or,  at  least,  some 
emanation  of  his  spirit,  came  to  dwell  in  the  image ;  so  that 
it  was,  in  very  deed,  a  god.  It  was  thus  literally  true  that  the 
last  stage  of  idolatry  was,  as  the  Book  of  Wisdom  expressly 
stated  it,  the  adoration  of  the  works  of  man.  And  their  artistic 
perfection,  under  the  chisel  or  the  brush  of  Grecian  sculptors 
and  painters,  increased,  in  the  eyes  of  an  imaginative  people, 
their  sacredness.  The  works  of  Phidias,  of  Praxiteles,  of 
Polygnotus,  were,  according  to  public  opinion,  divine  works. 
The  epithet  had  been  given  at  the  first  sight  of  their  beauty. 
When  they  were  carried  in  gorgeous  processions,  placed  on 
their  high  pedestals,  surrounded  with  a  large  array  of  priests 
*and  ministers  of  religion ;  when  chiefly  victims  were  led  be- 
fore them  to  be  sacrificed,  and  the  perfumes  of  Arabia  were 
lavishly  consumed  in  their  presence,  who  could  refuse  his 
assent  to  their  real  divinity  ?  Hence  they  might  be,  in  some 
sense,  representative  signs  of  higher  beings ;  they  were  infinitely 
more,  namely,  the  gods  themselves ;  and  it  would  have  been 
sacrilegious  to  treat  them  not  only  with  disrespect,  but  without 
the  honor  due  to  the  rulers  of  the  world. 

But  we  have  not  yet  expressed  in  sufficiently  clear  language 
the  strange  idolatrous  theory  we  are  discussing.  St.  Augustine 
does  it  fully  in  his  work,  "  De  Civitate  Dei "  (Book  YIIL, 
Chaps,  xxiii.,  xxiv.),  where  he  replies  to  arguments  in  the  dia- 
logue "Asclepius,"  already  known  to  our  readers.  It  was 
ascribed  to  Hermes  Trisrnegistus,  but  is  known  to  have  been 
published  anonymously  by  some  Platonist  philosopher,  per- 


HEEOIC   GREECE.  351 

haps  Apuleius.  It  expressed  certainly  the  doctrine  of  this 
school. 

"  Hermes^Trismegistus,"  says  the  great  African  doctor,  "  has 
spoken  of  them  (the  daemones)  differently  from  Apuleius. 
This  last  author  denies  that  they  are  gods  ;  yet,  placing  them 
as  mediators  between  gods  and  men,  so  that  they  become  indis- 
pensable to  the  man  who  wishes  to  communicate  with  the 
gods,  it  is  clear  that  he  does  not  distinguish  their  worship 
from  that  of  the  higher  gods.  But  the  Egyptian  Thoth  says 
expressly  '  that  there  are  gods  created  by  the  Supreme  One, 
and  others  created  by  man.'  Any  one  hearing  these  last 
expressions  will  imagine  that  he  speaks  of  images  only  which 
are  truly  the  work  of  human  hands.  But  he  does  more  ;  he 
asserts  that  the  material  images  which  are  seen  and  touched, 
and  thus  fall  under  our  senses,  are,  as  it  were  (velul),  the  bodies 
of  the  gods.  Inside  of  these  reside,  by  invitation,  certain 
spirits  endowed  with  the  power  either  of  harming  or  of  bene- 
fiting those  who  render  them  divine  honors  and  worship.  For 
man  to  possess  the  art  of  uniting  together  invisible  spirits  with 
material  substances,  so  that  the  images  (simulacra)  become,  so 
to  say,  bodies  animated  by  the  spirits  to  whom  they  have  been 
dedicated  and  subjected,  is,  according  to  Trismegistus,  to 
create  really  gods,  and  thus  man  has  received  the  great  and 
admirable  power  of  giving  existence  to  gods." 

The  same  crude  language  is  used  repeatedly  in  the  same 
Hermetic  dialogue.  One  single  passage  more  shall  render  the 
repulsive  doctrine  more  striking  and  clear  : 

"As  the  Father  and  Lord  of  all,"  says  Hermes,  "  has  made 
eternal  gods  to  His  own  image,  thus  our  humanity  has  figured 
its  own  gods  to  its  own  likeness  and  resemblance."  "  You 
speak  here  of  statues,  oh,  Trismegistus !"  exclaims  Asclepius ; 
and  Hermes  answers :  "  Statues,  indeed,  oh,  Asclepius !  thy 
eyes  can  see  ;  but  why  shouldst  thou  hesitate  to  believe  ?  They 
are  animated  statues,  full  of  a  divine  npirit,  and  endowed  with 


352  GENTILISM. 

a  powerful  energy  ;  they  are  statues  which  can  foretell  events, 
and  declare  them  by  the  casting  of  lots,  or  by  the  inspiration 
of  the  seer,  or  in  dreams,  or  in  many  other  ways ;  statues 
which  can  bring  to  men  diseases  or  cure  them,  and  thus'  cause 
joy  or  sadness." 

There  was  not,  therefore,  any  exaggeration  in  the  text  of 
the  inspired  writer,  whose  tale  of  the  carpenter  and  his  work 
naturally  brings  a  smile  on  the  lips  of  the  reader.  For  it  is 
clear,  from  the  above  quotation,  that,  in  the  opinion  not  of  the 
vulgar  alone,  but  of  philosophers,  educated  men,  and  pretended 
sages,  the  statues  and  pictures  adored  by  pagans  were  true 
gods  in  the  estimation  of  the  worshippers. 

This  was  at  last  the  religion  of  reiined,  philosophical,  artis- 
tic Greece ;  and  if  on  account  of  the  universal  taste  of  the 
people  there  was  generally,  in  the  exterior  ceremonies,  an  ap- 
pearance of  decency,  of  propriety,  of  sesthetic  culture,  differ- 
ent certainly  from  the  tumult  and  uproarious  noise  of  the 
monstrous  processions  of  Egypt,  or  of  modern  Hindostan,  we 
ought  not  to  think  that  everything  was  poetical,  tasteful,  enchant- 
ing. What  was  in  Sparta  the  worship  of  Diana  Orthia,  at  whose 
altar  Plutarch  testifies  that  "  he  had  seen  many  boys  expire 
under  the  lash  ? "  Yet  it  is  pretended  that  Lycurgus  had,  by 
his  laws,  substituted  a  simple  flagellation  for  the  immolation  of 
human  victims.  The  gossiping  philosopher  of  Chseronea, 
when  he  wrote  this  in  his  "  Life  of  Lycurgus,"  boasted  of  the 
refinement  of  his  age  which  had  abolished  all  previous  barba- 
rous customs  ;  and  he  lived  to  see  the  second  age  of  Christianity, 
whicli  he  does  not  seem  to  have  known  ;  yet  how  many  other 
senseless  and  monstrous  rites  existed  still,  and  continued  to 
exist,  until  they  were  put  an  end  to  by  a  pure  religion  ?  It  is 
known  that  lamblichus  and  many  other  Neoplatonists  were 
great  partisans  of  magic ;  and  the  magic  of  those  days  was 
like  that  of  the  modem  tantras  of  Hindostan,  the  bloody,  sa- 
tanic  handmaid  of  the  Evil  one.  Horace  has  described  it  in 


HEROIC    GREECE.  353 

one  of  his  poems  (Epod.  v.) ;  and  Julian,  the  apostate,  worthy 
follower  of  Xero  in  this  particular,  thought  *also  that  future 
events  could  be  read  in  the  living  entrails  of  expiring  human 
victims.  These  words  may  be  the  expression  of  an  indignant 
feeling ;  but  it  is  a  fair  and  righteous  one,  in  the  presence  of 
these  undeniable  and  horrible  facts. 

But  what  we  would  chiefly  call  the  attention  of  our  readers 
to  on  this  subject,  is  the  extent  to  which  divisions  were  intro- 
duced amongst  mankind  by  these  idolatrous  rites.  Religion 
was  no  more  national ;  it  had  become  purely  local.  And  al- 
though there  has  been,  we  hope,  no  deviation  in  our  train  of 
thoughts,  although  the  main  subject  we  proposed  for  our  inves- 
tigations has  been  steadily  kept  in  view,  and  no  side  issue  has 
been  at  any  time  allowed  to  interfere  with  it ;  yet  we  must  be 
allowed,  at  the  moment  of  considering  the  state  to  which 
Greece  and,  we  may  say,  the  whole  of  Europe,  was  reduced  at 
last,  to  recall  to  our  mind  the  religious  state  of  the  wojld  as  it 
was  at  first,  as  God  intended  it  should  remain.  It  was,  we 
saw,  a  truly  Catholic  religion  which  the  primitive  revelation  es- 
tablished. All  nations  had  received  the  same  truths,  the  same 
traditions,  the  same  hopes,  and  the  same  worship.  The  earth 
itself  had  been  created  for  that  object,  and  mankind,  on  its 
surface,  could  have  Remained  one  family.  But  their  pride  and 
their  passions  interfered  with  the  divine  plan.  Gradually  the 
unity  and  brotherhood  of  mankind  was  exchanged  for  divisions, 
continually  increasing,  until  religion  itself  was  rent  into  frag- 
ments, and  from  universal  it  became  national.  Pantheism, 
taking  a  different  shape  in  different  tribes,  lent  to  each  a  par- 
ticular scheme  of  creation,  and  introduced  as  many  cosmogo- 
nies as  there  were  peoples.  Polytheistic  idolatry  supervening 
everywhere,  rendered  religion  everywhere  uational^and  it  be- 
came invariably  an  affair  of  the  State.  Thus  wars  between 
nations  became  really  wars  between  gods ;  and  treaties  'of  alli- 
ance or  of  common  defence,  became  compacts  between  the 


354  GEJSTILISM. 

deities  of  the  contracting  parties.  No  one  thought  he  could 
worship  the  gods  of  another  race ;  and  the  idea  was  rather, 
everywhere,  one  of  hostility  against  all  foreign  religions.  The 
Romans  were,  the  first,  as  we  shall  see,  to  proclaim  a  spirit  of 
toleration  or  at  least  non-interference  ;  and  this  happened  just 
on  the  eve  of  the  preaching  of  Christianity.  The  well-known 
animosity,  for  instance,  of  the  Persians  against  the  gods  of 
Egypt  and  of  Greece,  which  was  their  chief  motive  for  de- 
stroying their  temples  and  their  statues ;  the  constant  clannish 
wars,  in  Egypt  itself,  of  city  against  city,  certainly  occasioned 
in  many  cases  by  the  mutual  hatred  against  their  respective 
divinities;  the  well-known  fact  that  in  the  opinion  of  all 
ancient  peoples  their  national  gods  took  side  for  them  against 
all  foreign  tribes,  who  received  help  likewise  from  their  own 
divinities,  many  other  details  of  the  annals  of  antiquity  supply 
incontestible  evidence  of  the  truth  of  our  hypothesis ;  which 
may  thus  be  considered  an  axiom  of  ancient  history. 

Greece,  likewise,  in  the  course  of  time,  came  to  have  a 
national  religion.  Homer  made  it,  and  it  was  then  coextensive 
with  the  race.  But  it  soon  showed  a  tendency  to  become  local, 
and,  at  last,  arrived  at  the  last  state  of  decomposition  in  be- 
coming individual. 

That  the  national  religion  in  Greece  had,  from  the  begin- 
ning, a  tendency  to  become  local,  is  evident  from  the  great 
number  of  gods  of  the  same  name  which  came  finally  to  be 
adopted  as  special  deities  in  various  Hellenic  localities.  It 
would  require  a  long  dissertation  on  the  various  divinities 
known  as  Zeus,  Hercules,  Apollo,  Hermes,  Aphrodite,  Arte- 
mis, Athene,  etc.,  to  assign  to  each  their  several  local  districts. 
Such  was  not  the  intention  of  Homer,  the  founder  of  the  bril- 
liant superstition.  There  is  in  his  great  poem  only  one  Zeus, 
one  Hercules,  one  Apollo,  etc.  But  it  can  not  be  doubted 
that,  in  course  of  time,  great  and  essential  differences  came  to 
be  admitted  in  the  various  personages  who  bore  those  names. 


HEROIC    GEEECE.  355 

Not  to  tire  our  readers  with  erudite  details,  which  could  not 
be,  after  all,  but  incomplete,  we  prefer,  as  usual,  to  copy  a  very 
remarkable  passage  of  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  whose  list 
of  such  gods  is  certainly  incomplete,  but  which,  from  its 
graphic  character,  cannot  but  make  a  lasting  impression  on  the 
mind  of  the  reader.  It  is  taken  from  his  "  Exhortation  to  the 
Heathen,"  Chap.  ii.  The  great  Alexandrian  doctor,  it  is  true, 
in  this  passage,  selects  his  facts  to  suit  the  system  of  Euhe- 
merus,  of  which  he  declares  himself  a  strong  partisan ;  and 
which,  after  all,  was  unable  ta  give  an  account  of  all  myths. 
Still  the  facts  quoted  here  are  undoubted,  and  they  are  suffi- 
cient for  our  purpose.  He  says : 

.  "  Agamemnon  is  said  by  Staphilus  to  be  worshipped  as  a  Ju- 
piter in  Sparta  ;  and  Phanocles,  in  his  book  of  the  '  Brave 
and  Fair,'  relates  that  Agamemnon,  King  of  the  Hellenes, 
erected  the  temple  of  Argennian  Aphrodite,  in  honor  of  Ar- 
gennus,  his.  friend.  An  Artemis,  named  the  Strangled,  is  wor- 
shipped by  the  Arcadians,  as  Callimachus  says  in  his  '  Book  of 
Causes ;'  and  at  Methymna  another  Artemis  had  divine  honors 
paid  her,  viz.,  Artemis  Condylitis.  There  is  also  the  temple 
of  another  Artemis — Artsmis  Podagra  (the  gout) — in  Laco- 
nica,  as  Sosibius  says.  Polemo  tells  of  an  image  of  a  yawning 
Apollo ;  and  again  of  another  image,  reverenced  in  Elis,  of  a 
guzzling  Apollo.  Then  the  Eleans  sacrifice  to  Zeus,  the  averter 
of  flies  ;  and  the  Romans  sacrifice  to  Hercules,  the  averter  of 
flies ;  and  to  Fever,  and  to  Terror,  whom  also  they  reckon 
among  the  attendants  of  Hercules.  I  pass  over  the  Argives, 
who  worshipped  Aphrodite,  the  opener  of  graves.  The  Ar- 
gives and  Spartans  reverence  Artemis  Chelytis,  or  the  cougher, 
from  ^e/lurmv,  which  in  their  speech  signifies  to  cough. 

"  Do  you  imagine  from  what  sources  these  details  have  been 
quoted.  ?  Only  such  as  are  furnished  by  yourselves  are  here 
adduced ;  and  you  do  not  seem  to  recognize  your  own  writers, 
whom  I  call  as  witnesses  against  your  unbelief.  Poor  wretches 


356  GENTILISM. 

that  ye  are,  who  have  filled  with  unholy  jesting  the  whole  com 
pass  of  your  life — a  life  in  reality  devoid  of  life  ! 

"  Is  not  Zeus,  the  bald-headed,  worshipped  in  Argos ;  and 
another  Zeus,  the  avenger,  in  Cyprus  ?  Do  not  the  Argives 
sacrifice  to  Aphrodite  Peribaso  (the  protectress),  and  the  Athe- 
nians to  Aphrodite  Hetsera  (the  courtesan),  and  the  Syracusans 
to  Aphrodite  Callipygos,  who*m  Nicander  has  somewhere  called 
Calliglutos  ?" — the  pun  cannot  be  translated — "  I  pass  over  in 
silence  just  now  Dionysus  Choiropsales.  The  Sicyonians  rever- 
ence this  deity,  whom  they  have  constituted  the  god  of  the  mu- 
liebria — the  patron  of  filthiness — and  religiously  honor  as  the 
author  of  licentiousness.  Such,  then,  are  their  gods ;  such  are 
thej"  also  who  make  mockery  of  the  gods,  or  rather  mock  and 
insult  themselves.  How  much  better  are  the  Egyptians,  who, 
in  their  towns  and  villages,  pay  divine  honors  to  irrational  crea- 
tures, than  the  Greeks,  who  worship  such  gods  as  these  ?" 

This  passage  is  all-sufficient  to  show  how  the  former  national 
gods  of  Greece  had  gradually  become  local  deities.  A  whim, 
a  caprice,  a  trivial  circumstance,  induced  the  population  of  a 
city,  a  town,  a  village,  to  erect  a  temple  to  some  divinity  which 
had  taken  their  fancy.  The  building  arose.  When  the  ques- 
tion of  the  name  came  to  be  considered,  the  particular  designa- 
tion of  some  well-known  god  presented  itself,  but  coupled  with 
an  epithet,  a  paraphrase,  a  specification,  which  rendered  altoge- 
ther local  some  hitherto  national  god.  And  these  designations 
were,  in  general,  accompanied  with  such  ridiculous,  or  even  infa- 
mous, particularities  that,  as  St.  Clement  said  :  "  The  Egyptians 
did  better,  who,  in  their  towns  and  villages  paid  divine  honors  to 
irrational  creatures,  than  the  Greeks  who  worshipped  such  gods 
as  these."  To  which  he  added,  to  explain  better  his  meaning 
— and  it  offers  an  appropriate  commentary  on  what,  through- 
out this  work,  we  are  endeavoring  to  establish — "  For  if  the 
Egyptian  deities  are  beasts,  they  are  not  adulterous  and  libidi- 
nous, and  seek  pleasure  in  nothing  that  is  contrary  to  nature 


HEROIC    GREECE.  .  357 

But  if  the  Egyptians  are  said  to  be  divided  in  their  objects  of 
cult ;  if  the  Syenites  worship  the  braize-fish,  and  if  the  maiote 
— this  is  another  fish — is  worshipped  by  those  who  inhabit  Ele- 
phantine ;  if  the  Oxyrinchites  likewise  adore  a  fish  which  takes 
its  name  from  their  country ;  if,  again,  the  Heraclitopolites 
worship  the  ichneumon,  the  inhabitants  of  Sais  and  of  Thebes  a 
sheep,  the  Leucopolites  a  wolf,  the  Cynopolites  a  dog,  the  Mem- 
phites  Apis,  the  Mendesians  a  goat,  etc. ;  you,  who  are  altoge- 
ther better  than  the  Egyptians  (I  shrink  from  saying  worse), 
who  are  never  done  laughing  every  day  of  your  lives  at  the 
Egyptians,  what  are  some  of  you,  too,  with  respect  to  brute 
beasts  ?  Of  your  number  the  Thessalians  pay  divine  homage 
to  storks,  in  accordance  with  ancient  custom ;  and  the  Theb^hs 
to  weasels,  for  their  assistance  at  the  birth  of  Hercules.  And 
again,  are  not  the  Thessaliaus  reported  to  worship  ants,  since 
they  have  learned  that  Zeus,  in  the  likeness  of  an  ant,  had  in- 
tercourse with  Eurymedusa,  the  daughter  of  Clitor,  and  begot 
Myrmedon  ?  Polemo,  too,  relates  that  the  people  who  inhabit 
the  Troad  worship  the  mice  of  the  country,  which  they  call 
Sminthoi,  because  they  gnawed  the  strings  of  their  enemies' 
bows,  and  from  those  mice  Apollo  has  received  his  epithet  of 
Sminthian.  Heraclides,  in  his  work,  'Regarding  the  Building 
of  Temples  in  Acamania,'  says,  that  at  the  place  where  the 
promontory  of  Actium  is,  and  the  Temple  of  Apollo  of  Actium, 
thev  offer  to  the  flies  the  sacrifice  of  an  ox.  Nor  must  I  forget 

9 

the  Samians ;  these,  as  Euphorion  says,  reverence  the  sheep ; 
nor  the  Syrians,  who  inhabit  Phoenicia,  of  whom  some  revere 
doves,  and  others  fishes,  with  as  excessive  veneration  as  the 
Eleans  do  Zeus.''  . 

These  details  prove  abundantly  what  had  become,  at  last,  of 
the  religion  of  the  Hellenes.  It  had  become  split  up  into  end- 
less divisions,  and  localized.  Old,  respectable  traditions,  con- 
taining real  myths,  intended  at  first  to  convey  solemn  truths, 
had  been  long  before  replaced  by  other  traditions  which  could, 


358  .  GENTILISM. 

no  doubt,  have  been  traced  historically  to  the  whole  race,  or  at 
least  to  some  great  Hellenic  tribes.  These,  in  their  turn,  had 
given  way  to  local  tales,  perhaps  still  connected  with  local  his- 
tory. And,  finally,  the  whole  ended  in  ridiculous  fables  admit- 
ted as  truth  in  some  particular  spot,  village,  township,  hamlet ; 
and  of  these  at  last  the  religion  of  the  Greeks  almost  every- 
where consisted.  • 


IX. 


But  there  was  yet  a  still  lower  descent,  although  that  seems, 
indeed,  to  be  scarcely  possible..  This  was  the  decomposition  of 
rdKgious  feeling  into  merely  individual  emotion.  We  of  these 
days  can  readily  understand  it,  because  Protestantism  produces 
everywhere  something  very  similar  in  the  universal  decompo- 
sition of  belief,  and  in  the  complete  disintegration  of  sects, 
everything  being  reduced  to  individual  feeling. 

The  Hellenes  were  a  profoundly  reflecting  people.  They 
pretended  to  be  always  guided  by  reason.  But  human  reason 
could  not  admit  the  fables  into  which  the  exterior  religion 
had  resolved  itself.  Henee,  for  a  great  number  of  them,  relig- 
ion had  lost  all  its  power  over  their  mind.  To  the  uneducated 
people,  the  popular  worship,  on  account  of  its  absurdities,  be- 
came finally  a  gross  superstition.  Everything,  consequently, 
came  to  be  worshipped  by  them,  and  every  one  must  have  his 
own  particular  belief.  The  educated  part  of  the  race,  more 
able  to  systematize  their  thoughts,  impressed  yet  with  religious 
feelings,  since  man  cannot  exist  without  them,  were  reduced  to 
form  to  themselves  religious  theories  of  their  own,  and  to  wor- 
ship the  beings  who,  in  their  ideas,  were  the  real  rulers  of  the 
world.  These  men,  therefore,  so  proud  of  their  science,  of 
their  literary  attainments,  of  their  artistic  culture,  were,  of  ne- 
cessity, as  superstitious  as  the  common  people,  although  in  a 
different  way.  Thus,  in  all  alike,  religion  became  degraded  to 


HEROIC    GREECE.  359 

an  irrational  and  grovelling  superstition.  But  superstition  can- 
not be  anything  else  than  an  individual  disease  of  the  soul. 
This  certainly  happened  to  the  Greeks. 

A  similar  process  took  place  amongst  the  Romans  of  the  same 
epoch  ;  and  the  phenomenon  has  been  described  with  such 
graphic  power  and  such  force  by  Mr.  F.  de  Champagny  in  his 
"Antonins,"  that  we  cannot  do  better  than  transfer  to  our 
pages  a  short  passage  of  this  admirable  work  (Livre,  vi.,  Ch. 
iii.)  :  "  Some  philosophers  were  then  trying  (under  Marcus 
Aurelius)  to  close  against  man  all  the  doors  leading  to  God ; 
but  other  philosophers  knew  how  to  vindicate  the  rights  of  the 
human  soul,  attested  by  its  needs :  ;  Atrocious  sentence !'  cried 
Apuleius  (de  Deo  Socratis),  '  must  men  remain  separated  for 
ever  from  the  communion  with  immortal  beings,  imprisoned 
in  the  hell  of  this  life,  deprived  of  all  communication  with  the 
gods !  No  celestial  guide  to  watch  over  them  as  the  shepherd 
over  his  flock !  .  .  .  .  No  superior  being  to  curb  their  passions, 
alleviate  their  sufferings,  and  relieve  their  poverty  !'....  This 
outcry  of  the  human  conscience,  which  no  philosophy  will 
ever  be  able  to  repress,  broke  forth,  then  as  ever,  from  the 
breast  of  all. 

"  More  than  this ;  instead  of  being  smothered,  as  it  is  gen- 
erally to-day,  by  an  abnormal  and  morbid  philosophy,  religion, 
that  absolute  need  of  man,  over-excited  by  the  impure  atmos- 
phere which  surrounded  it,  went  rather  too  far,  and  overstep- 
ped the  proper  limits.  The  idea  of  God  remaining  obscure  to 
the  soul,  the  soul  looked  outside  of  God  himself  for  something 
which  it  could  adore,  hope  in,  submit  and  pray  to  ...  What 
it  adored,  ran  after,  dreaded,  did  not  even  receive  the  name  of 
God ;  it  was  Nature,  Elements,  Force,  Fate,  Necessity  ;  under 
the  name  of  Fatum,  the  soul  divinized  whatever  is  inert,  un- 
intelligent, insensible.  The  soul,  certainly,  did  not  know  the 
object  of  its  adoration ;  yet  admitting  some  supernatural 
agency,  without  inquiring  what  it  was,  it.  went  in  all  directions, 


360  GENTILISM. 

trying  to  find  by  its  looks  and  its  prayers  a  secret  force,  an  un- 
known power,  corporal  rather  than  intellectual,  worldly  rather 
than  heavenly,  superhuman,  but  not  divine. 

"  Thus,  to  tell  the  truth,  no  one  believed,  and  all  were  super- 
stitious ;  no  one  had  any  religious  conviction :  all  felt  a  real  relig- 
ious passion.  Every  one  followed  that  course  with  as  much 
more  impetuosity,  as  there  was  no  more  any  dogma  to  trace 
the  way.  The  moral  disease  which  had  produced  polytheism 
was  as  active  as  ever,  although  thus  reduced  to  individualism  ; 
and  every  successive  day  of  the  pagan  world  generated  a  new 
paganism  in  human  souls." 

From  this  passage  we  ought  not  to  conclude  that  there  was 
a  complete  separation  between  the  superstitions  of  the  en- 
lightened and  those  of  the  vulgar.  "The  atheist  himself," 
says  the  same  author,  somewhere  else,  "  was  not  above  the  fear 
of  magic,  dreams,  astrology.  The  epicurean  Caesar  had  his 
talismans.  Tiberius,  an  open  atheist,  despised  so  much  more 
the  gods,  says  Suetonius,  as  he  believed  the  more  in  his  astrol- 
abe. Pliny  the  Elder  denies  the  soul  and  insults  God ;  but  he 
does  not  think  he  derogates  to  his  dignity  of  a  free-thinker  by 
having  faith  in  magical  incantations  to  cure  bodily  sores. 
Tacitus  denies  Providence ;  yet  he  speaks  of  omens,  dreams, 
prodigies,  without  any  apparent  hesitation  or  doubt.  .  .  .  Juve- 
nal laughs  boldly  at  mythological  traditions  about  the  ( tims 
when  Juno  was  yet  a  little  girl,  and  Jupiter  a  simple  citizen 
dwelling  in  the  caves  of  mount  Ida.'  Still,  when  one  of  his 
friends  is  saved  from  shipwreck,  Juvenal  offers  a  hind  in  sacri- 
fice to  Juno,  and  a  young  bull  to  Jupiter,  because  he  feels  the 
need  of  thanking  somebody,  and  does  not  know  how  to  do  it 
otherwise." 

Have  we  not  shown,  too,  how  in  the  dialogue  "  Asclepius  " — 
published  by  Neoplatonists,  and  circulated  by  them  as  a 
rational  explanation  of  polytheism — Hermes  instructs  his  dis- 
ciple about  those  "  consecrated  statues,  full  of  a  Divine  energy, 


HEKOIC    GEEECE.  361 

directing  the  casting  of  lots,  speaking  in  dreams,  inspiring  the 
predictions  of  seers,  and  showing  thjir  divinity  in  many  other 
ways  ?  " 

Hence  philosophers,  as  well  as  the  common  people,  went 
still  to  consult  oracles  ;  they  stretched  themselves,  at  night,  in 
the  temples,  on  the  bleeding  hide  of  the  bull  or  of  the  roe, 
which  had  been  immolated  at  their  expense,  trying  to  sleep 
and  to  have  dreams,  which  would  certainly  be  the  expression 
of  the  will  of  the  gods.  For  they  still  read  Homer  frequently, 
and  Homer  has  repeated  several  times  :  "  KOI  yap  T'  bva^  en 


tVere  we  to  quote  all  the  passages  of  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  in  the  three  first  centuries,  and  all  the  remarkable 
texts  of  pagan  authors  during  the  same  ages,  containing  proofs 
of  the  totally  rotten  superstition  of  Hellenism  at  the  time,  and 
chiefly  of  its  completely  local  and  individual  character,  we 
should  fill  volumes  of  quotations.  "We  have,  however,  stated 
enough  for  our  purpose.  It  only  remains  that  we  recall  to  the 
memory  of  the  reader,  what  we  have  proved  of  the  primitive 
religion  of  the  race,  chiefly  of  its  monotheism,  and  respectable 
traditions  coming  evidently  from  a  primitive  revealed  doctrine, 
in  order  to  compare  it  with  the  senseless  fables  which  composed 
the  whole  religious  belief  of  the  nation  at  the  end. 

Such  had  been  the  result  of  the  "  culture,"  as  it  is  called, 
introduced  by  the  polytheism  of  Homer.  All  the  artistic  per- 
fection, the  literary  excellence,  the  philosophical  acumen  of 
the  race,  had  brought  only  religious  disorganization  and  myth- 
ical absurdity.  The  same  Imd  been  the  case  in  Hindostan,  in 
Egypt,  in  all  Oriental  countries.  We  must  admit,  consequently, 
that  the  progress  had  only  been  backwards  :  that  a  brilliant  civil- 
ization is  not  always  the  best  ;  that  human  society  requires 
more  than  the  glare  of  what  is  called  "  refinement,"  to  have 
happiness  insured,  truth  really  developed,  and  the  imprescript- 
ible needs  of  the  human  soul  forever  secured. 


362  GENTILISM. 

Yet  we  ought  not  to  imagine  that  what  had  been  trans- 
mitted from  patriarchal  times  had  altogether  perished  ;  that  no 
trace  whatever  remained  of  the  primitive  revelation  ;  and  that 
this  inestimable  gift  of  God,  after  having  blessed  mankind  in 
Europe  for  a  short  period  at  first,  had  been  snatched  away,  or 
wantonly  dissipated,  without  a  shadow  of  remembrance.  We 
are  quite  convinced  that  something  of  it  always  remained, 
although  the  great  mass  of  the  people  was  altogether  uncon- 
scious of  it ;  and  to  this  we  must  ascribe  the  fervor,  yes,  the 
real  enthusiasm  with  which  the  Hellenic  race  admitted  Chris- 
tianity. All  the  Greek  Fathers  of  the  Church  are  unanimous 
in  finding,  in  their  old  authors,  innumerable  fragments  of 
truth,  for  which  Eusebius  coined  an  admirable  word  when  he 
said  it  was  prceparatio  evangelica.  To  be  sure,  many  of  those 
texts  adduced  by  the  primitive  fathers  would  not  be  so  readily 
admitted  by  a  sound  modern  criticism.  Yet  many  are  certainly 
striking  ;  and  modern  scholars  have,  in  their  learned  investiga- 
tions, discovered  others  which  had  escaped  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  themselves,  unacquainted  as  they  were  with  Hindoo 
and  Egyptian  antiquities.  To  know  thoroughly  Gentilism,  to 
appreciate  its  real  value,  apart  from  the  mass  of  errors  and 
superstitions  into  which  it  finally  degenerated,  we  must  try  to 
sift  the  golden  grain  from  the  chaff  and  the  baneful  seeds,  and 
collect  together  something,  at  least,  of  that  treasure  so  abun- 
dant and  so  rich  at  first,  so  scanty  and  so  insignificant  at  last, 
still  always  precious,  and  bearing  yet  the  impress  of  its  divine 
origin.  This  we  will  endeavor  to  do  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  YII. 


HELLENIC   PHILOSOPHY  AS  A  CHAN  NET,  OP  TRADITION. 


I. 


THE  precious  fragments  of  a  primitive  revelation  are  found 
scattered  through  the  writings  of  nearly  all  ancient  Greek 
and  Latin  authors,  and  it  would  require  an  immense  labor  to 
collect  them  together.  We  can  only  select  a  few  of  them. 
And  the  plan  we  propose  is  to  adduce  first  those  that  have 
been  preserved  and  transmitted  by  philosophers,  and  pass  from 
them  to  the  poets,  more  rich  yet  in  tokens  of  this  heavenly 
treasure. 

Philosophy,  now  called  Science,  was  born  in  Greece.  The 
Oriental  and  Southern  nations  never  knew  it  in  the  sense  we 
attach  to  the  word.  The  Hindoo  Sankhya  drew  its  doctrines 
as  much  from  religious  tradition  as  from  pure  reason.  But 
the  Greek  philosophers,  with  the  exception  of  the  traditionalist 
branch — Pythagoreans  and  Platonists — left  entirely  aside  what 
had  been  handed  down  from  primitive  times,  and  proposed  to 
themselves  to  study  the  exterior  world  and  human  nature 
merely  from  the  data  of  their  own  mind  or  senses.  Thus  pure 
rationalism  started  on  its  career,  destined  to  invade  the  whole 
of  Europe,  and  to  give  to  the  Japhetic  or  Aryan  races  the 
character  peculiar  to  them  of  scientific  investigators  or  phys- 
icists. 

Whoever  enters  on  philosophic  studies,  soon  realizes  that, 
when  he  is  provided  with  the  necessary  preliminaries,  namely, 

language  and  logic,  he  has  to  examine  first  the  principles  of 

(363} 


364  GENTILISM. 

things  (ontology  and  pure  metaphysics) ;  then  the  Author  of 
the  "World,  whoever  he  may  be  (Theodicaea  and  Cosmogony) ; 
and,  finally,  coming  to  man  himself,  he  has  to  inquire  into  his 
nature,  and  chiefly  find  out,  if  he  can  with  his  reason  alone, 
what  is  the  great  object  of  human  life  (the  surnmum  tonum) 
which  must  lay  at  the  bottom  of  ethics.  These  studies  are 
anterior  and  far  superior  to  the  mere  observation  of  exterior 
phenomena,  which  is  the  great  object  of  physics  in  all  its 
branches,  beginning  by  mathematics  —  the  necessary  means 
of  investigation — which  stands  for  this  material  branch  of 
inquiry  in  lieu  of  logic  and  philology  for  the  previous 
one. 

The  Greeks,  at  first,  did  not  propose  to  themselves  .so  vast 
an  amount  of  mental  work.  But  their  very  'first  efforts  re- 
quired that,  in  course  of  time,  they  should  go  through  the 
whole.  Two  mighty  considerations,  however,  engrossed  their 
attention  on  the  very  threshold  of  inquiry :  these  were  the 
origin  of  the  universe  (cosmogony)  and  the  summuih  bonum  / 
of  these  alone  are  we  bound  to  speak. 

The  same  had  taken  place  in  Hindostan  ;  but  the  Yedas 
had  anticipated  the  solution.  According  to  them,  the  world 
had  emanated  from  Brahma,  and  man  was  to  return  to  the 
source  of  his  being.  The  Sankhya,'  or  Hindoo  philosophy, 
must  admit  these  as  first  principles,  and  only  give  its  own  solu- 
tion, or  rather  explanation.  In  Greece,  no  authoritative  voice 
had  spoken.  The  philosopher  was  free  to  direct  his  investiga- 
tions as  he  chose,  and  publish  to  the  woild  what  his  reason 
alone  had  demonstrated.  Hence  a  perfect  avalanche  of  systems 
was  immediately  let^  loose  on  the  country.  Most  of  them,  if 
not  all,  were  completely  atheistic.  Brahma,  Zeus,  Amun,  or 
whatever  was  the  name  by  which  the  Supreme  Being  was 
known,  had  evidently  taken  no  part  in  the  creation  of  the 
world.  The  world  had  made  itself.  The  only  question  was 
to  know  which  was  the  first  element,  Water  ?  or  Air  ?  or  Fire  ? 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  365 

As  soon  as  the  first  link  of  the  chain  was  found,  the  whole 
chain  unfolded  itself  majestically. 

When,  later  on,  ethical  subjects  came  under  consideration,  the 
same  strange  phenomena  took  place  in  Greece  with  respect  to 
the  summum  bonum,  the  foundation  of  all  ethics.  Was  man 
made  for  knowledge,  or  for  virtue,  or  for  pleasure  ?  This  was 
the  theoretical  question,  which  was  always  decided  without  any 
reference  to  the  Eternal  Lawgiver,  who  nevertheless  speaks  to 
all  through  human  conscience.  Evidently  rationalism  was 
early  in  the  field,  and  promised  to  Europe  long  ages  of  fine- 
spun theories  and  well-balanced  systems.  Yet  the  question 
here  presents  itself,  Had  not  the  Greeks  then  a  religion  ?  Did 
thqy  not  believe  in  the  gods,  if  not  in  a  supreme  one  ?  What 
did  the  religious  authorities  of  the  race  say — those  who  had  the 
guardianship  of  religion  ?  What  did  even  the  people,  always 
fervently  religious  in  Greece,  say  and  do  when  such  atheism 
was  professed  ? 

To  give  to  these  questions  an  answer  altogether  satisfactory 
is  difficult.  Yet  we  must  try  to  suggest,  at  least,  the  one 
which  seems  to  us  the  most  probable  and  sufficient.  The  con- 
crete principle  which,  in  our  opinion,  renders  all  this  less 
shocking  and  inexplicable  is  this  —  State  religion.  A  great 
change  had  tdken  place  among  the  Hellenes  in  the  ages  imme- 
diately preceding  Thales  and  the  other  philosophers.  From  the 
heroic  Pelasgic  age  the  world  had  passed  over  to  the  purely 
republican  and  Hellenic ;  and  in  the  change,  /State  religion  had 
been  established  everywhere — State  religion  which  considered 
only  the  exterior  worship  as  everything,  the  doctrine  as  noth- 
ing, or  next  to  nothing.  Let  us  examine  this  a  little  more  in 
detail. 

Our  readers  remember  what  was  said  of  the  extraordinary 
difference  existing  in  Greece  between  the  people  described  by 
Homer  and  the  people  we  see  inhabiting  sometime  after  Hel- 
lenic cities  :  government,  manners,  customs,  ideas,  conse- 


366  GENTILISM. 

quently  all,  is  changed.  And,  unfortunately,  as  nearly  all 
the  works  of  the  writers  of  the  intervening  period  have  per- 
ished, we  have  not  the  least  means  of  judging  how  the  change 
was  effected.  "We  only  see  that,  in  the  first  period,  all  the 
tribes  live  apart,  each  with  its  own  chieftain  governing  the  sept 
as  a  true  monarch ;  and,  in  the  second,  many  tribes  have  coal- 
esced to  form  States  with  republican  institutions.  In  the  first, 
religion  is  intrusted  to  bards  and  seers,  who  sing  to  the  people 
long  poems  containing  the  former  traditions,  enveloped  in 
myths,  it  is  true,  yet  conveying  often  great  truths,  and  proclaim- 
ing a  relatively  pure  moral  law  ;  in  the  second,  religion  is  alto- 
gether a  State  affair,  with  State  rites,  State  gods,  and  really  no 
priesthood ;  the  whole  concerned  about  completely  exterior 
worship,  without  any  dogmatic  teaching  and  moral  exhortation. 
In  the  first,  we  see  the  simple  manners  of  an  agricultural  and 
pastoral  people,  abounding  in  all  things  which  make  life  easy, 
but  with  no  settled  system  of  trade  and  colonization  ;  building 
already  cities  with  tasteful  edifices  and  dwellings,  yet  never 
concentrating  their  efforts  in  close  agglomerations  of  men,  and 
preferring  still  to  breathe  the  free  air  of  the  open  country. 
In  the  second,  we  have  the  great  mass  of  the  population  intent 
chiefly  on  trade,  colonization,  war,  city  life,  and  art.  It  looks  as 
if  it  was  question  of  two  races  altogether  different.  Yet  we 
saw  that,  most  probably,  the  Pelasgic  race  had  gradually  passed 
into  the  Hellenic,  and  this  one  was  the  second  part  of  a  series 
begun  by  the  first. 

These  considerations  render  it  more  easy  to  understand  the 
freedom  of  inquiry,  unaffected  by  religious  feeling  of  any 
kind  which  prevailed  in  the  second  period  from  its  beginning. 
They  spoke  constantly  of  liberty,  complete  freedom ;  no  law 
prevented  them  from  embracing  the  various  careers  of  com- 
merce, of  agriculture,  of  study,  of  art,  of  propagandism  of 
their  ideas.  Provided  they  conformed  to  the  State  religion^ 
they  had  satisfied  all  that  piety  to  the'  gods  required  ;  and  we 


HELLENIC   PHILOSOPHY.  367 

have  no  doubt  that  at  the  very  time  Epicurus  was  publicly  lec- 
turing on  his  atomic  theory,  or  worse  still,  on  his  summum 
fionum,  he  was  most  exact  in  paying  his  duties  to  the  temples, 
and  offering  victims,  probably,  to  the  deities  he  did  not  believe 
in.  It  is,  indeed,  surprising  how  soon  the  doctrine  of  the  State 
god  had  penetrated  the  Greek  mind,  not  only  among  the  fa- 
natic Spartans,  but  among  all  other  tribes,  chiefly  in  refined  and 
rationalistic  Athens.  It  was  not  Lycurgus  alone  who  preached 
it  to  his  rude  Lacedemonians,  and  succeeded  in  making  it  the 
chief,  or  rather  the  only,  belief  of  the  nation  ;  but,  in  all  other 
parts  of  Greece,  the  same  had  taken  place,  we  do  not  know 
precisely  how.  Socrates  himself  was  so  fully  persuaded  of  the 
necessity  of  the  doctrine,  that  he  admitted  it,  even  when  the 
measures  enacted  by  it  were  evidently  unjust  and  barbarous. 
And  he  was  consistent  even  against  his  own  interest,  since 
knowing  that  he  had  been  unjustly  condemned,  yet  he  remain- 
ed in  prison,  resolved  to  die,  although  he  could  have  escaped, 
because  "  a  citizen  must  obey  even  an  unjust  decree."  If  a 
man  is  bound  to  submit  to  death  unjustly,  when  he  can  escape 
without  any  injury  to  a  third  person,  he  will  be  bound  like- 
wise to  obey  the  State  in  whatever  he  is  commanded  to  do. 
Since  obedience  to  the  State  is  thus  placed  above  any  right, 
human  and  divine,  he  will  have  to  worship  what  he  knows  is 
not  god,  if  the  State  pronounces  it  to  be  god  ;  but  the  worship 
will  be  sufficient  if  it  be  merely  exterior,  and  without  the  as- 
sent of  the  mind.  In  this  system  there  is  no  truth,  there  is  no 
right,  there  is  only  the  omnipotence  of  the  State.  To  this 
state  had  Greece  already  arrived  ;  and  the  strange  anomaly  of 
philosophers  teaching  in  fact  atheism,  when  they  professed 
outwardly  the  belief  of  the  State,  has  nothing  which  need 
surprise  us.  Hence  Epicurus  could  tell  his  hearers  that  "  the 
fear  of  the  gods  "  is  the  great  error  which  renders  human  life 
intolerable  ;  and  that,  by  striking  at  this  superstition  and  free- 
ing men  forever  from  such  a  bugbear, he  was  their  benefactor; 
25 


368  GENTILISM. 

yet  by  submitting  in  appearance  to  the  "  established  faith,"  by 
admitting  gods  in  name,  although  denying  them  in  reality,  he 
placed  himself  above  the  possibility  of  a  suspicion  of  atheism, 
and  could  continue  to  teach  peaceably  what  destroyed,  in  fact, 
all  religion.  And  Epicurus  was  not  alone.  He  was  not  the 
first.  He  was  only  one  among  many.  He  merely  applied 
practically  the  doctrines  of  his  predecessors,  chiefly  of  Anaxa- 
goras  and  Democritus.  In  fact,  the  fanciful  dreams  of  Hellenic 
philosophers,  chiefly  of  the  physical  school,  were  already  as 
numerous  and  as  deadly  as  the  systems  of  our  days  which  suc- 
ceed each  other  so  rapidly,  and  would  soon  spread  atheism 
broadcast  over  the  world,  if  mankind,  having  possessed  truth 
traditionally  for  so  many  ages,  was  not  too  profoundly  impress- 
ed with  the  consciousness  of  it,  to  surrender  its  inward  belisf 
in  God  at  the  dictation  of  learned  sophists  or  brilliant  writers. 
Yes,  the  Hellas  of  twenty-five  centuries  ago  was  already  the 
Babel  of  our  system-mongers.  It  would,  however,  appear  at 
first  sight,  that  what  we  are  now  insisting  on  is  completely  op- 
posed to  the  object  we  have  in  view,  which  is  to  show  that  the 
primitive  doctrines  transmitted  to  the  Hellenes  by  their  Eastern 
ancestors,  were  never  altogether  dead  or  inefficient,  even  in 
the  worst  times  of  idolatry  and  unbelief.  This  has  not  escaped 
us.  But  it  occurred  to  us,  that,  if  we  directed  attention  to  the 
innate  spirit  of  rationalism  so  early  developed  in  the  race,  and 
destined  to  spread  so  far  and  so  wide,  it  might  serve  to  bring 
out  in  stronger  relief  what  we  are  now  about  to  urge,  since 
with  such  an  early  inclination  to  practical  atheism  and  material- 
ism, we  see  in  Greece  a  long  line  of  great  men  intent  on  a 
completely  different  object. 

We  mean  to  speak  of  traditionalist  philosophers,  and  we 
have  mentioned  the  Pythagorean  and  Platonician  systems— 
namely,  the  Italic  and  the  Academic  schools.  To  a  considera- 
tion of  these,  then,  we  now  proceed. 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  369 


II. 


In  the  midst  of  those  numerous  philosophical  sects  in 
Greece,  founded  merely  on  individual  reason, — even  in  the  do- 
main of  religious  truth ;  all  appealing  to  it  as  to  the  standard 
of  belief,  all  warring  with  each  other,  jet  all  proclaiming  the 
paramount  claims  of  human  intellect  to  the  possession  of  ab- 
solute certainty  with  respect  to  the  things  of  heaven  and  earth, — 
it  is  consoling  to  find  two  great  and  influential  bodies  of  men 
agreeing  with  the  others  as  to  the  power  given  to  the  human 
mind  of  apprehending  truth  and  discerning  it  from  mere  soph- 
ism, yet  proclaiming  aloud  that  man  has  not  been  left  without 
any  other  guide  than  his  reason ;  that  there  are  eternal,  divine 
principles,  attainable  by  human  intellect,  yet  which  it  will 
never  reach  unless  they  are  revealed  from  above ;  that  primi- 
tively heaven  spoke,  and  the  divine  word  was  not  given  to  be 
immediately  lost  in  the  universal  confusion  of  human  speech  ; 
but  that  some  men  have  fortunately  received  it  and  kept  it, 
more  or  less  perfectly ;  that  the  only  important  affair  is  to 
find  those  depositaries  of  divine  wisdom,  and  when  they  have 
been  found,  to  gain  access  to  them,  and  learn  from  their  lips 
what  otherwise  we  should  never  discover,  namely,  the  true 
origin  of  tliis  universe  and  the  real  summum  bonum  of  human 
life. 

If  all  this  series  of  reasoning  is  not  textually  expressed  in 
the  belief  of  the  Italic  and  Academic  schools,  it  is  undoubt- 
edly sufficiently  apparent  from  the  history  of  their  founders, 
and  the  doctrines  they  taught.  Both  Pythagoras  and  Plato 
did  not  think  that  they  could  alone  find  out  the  truth  on  such 
important  subjects  of  inquiry.  Both  travelled  extensively,  and 
Pythagoras  at  least  went  certainly  to  Egypt,  and  most  probably 
to  India,  if  not  to  the  Celtic  countries,  to  interrogate  the  wise 
men  of  the  most  ancient  nations,  who  were  more  likely  to  pos- 


370  GENTILISM. 

sess  the  divine  utterances  at  the  very  origin  of  man.  Both 
finally  brought  from  those  foreign  countries  doctrines  more  or 
less  pure,  but  which  they  both  superadded  to  the  teachings  of 
their  own  reason.  Hence  we  call  them  traditionalist  philoso- 
phers ;  not  implying  that  they  set  aside  and  despised  what 
their  own  intellect  saw  clearly ;  but  that  they  thought  there 
was,  for  some  questions,  a  light  superior  to  that  of  their  own 
mind,  which  it  was  the  duty  of  the  wise  man  to  consult. 

If  we  consider  Pythagorism  and  Platonisin  apart,  the  first 
is  certainly  remarkable  for  a  well-known  and  perfectly  well-as- 
certained fact ;  namely,  that  alj  the  disciples  were  bound  to 
submit  to  the  i-pse  dixit  of  the  n<  aster,  who  had  himself  re- 
ceived several  of  his  dogmas  from  other  men.  This  alone 
would  put  the  real  stamp  of  traditionalism  on  the  Italic  school. 
But  besides  this  important  feature,  it  is  likewise  well  known 
that  the  Pythagoreans,  after  the  example  of  their  masts:-,  con- 
sidered of  great  moment  the  various  Orphic  traditions  then 
floating  all  over  Greece.  They  collected  them,  preserved  them, 
and  compared  them  together,  thus  trying  to  connect  their  own 
time  with  antiquity,  and  to  prevent  the  disintegration  of  all 
ancient  doctrines  by  the  ever-moving  agitation  of  mythological 
diversity  going  on  under  their  eyes.  We  are  sure  that  the  poor 
fragments  of  Orphic  lore  which  remained  in  the  time  of  Plato, 
and  which  have  been  preserved  to  our  very  days,  were  the 
result  of  this  particular  care  of  the  Italic  school.  Hence  when 
Pythagorism,  after  more  than  a  century  of  almost  total  disap- 
pearance in  Italy  and  Greece,  revived  about  two  hundred  years 
before  Christ,  Orphic  societies  rose  up  at  the  same  time,  in 
the  same  countries ;  and  this  well-known  fact  has  not  been  suf- 
ficiently dwelt  upon  even  by  modern  investigators,  to  show  the 
true  character  of  the  sect  of  Pythagoras.  It  was,  in  fact,  a 
real  protest,  in  the  name  of  antiquity,  against  the  deluge  of 
philosophical  absurdities  which  the  ever-gushing  source  of  Hel- 
lenic rationalism  poured  constantly  over  the  devoted  field  of 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  371 

Europe.  Unfortunately  the  Pythagoreans  were  too  few  in 
numbers ;  for  they  limited  their  society  chiefly  to  the  aristo- 
cratic class,  which  was  soon  overwhelmed  by  the  flood  of  de- 
mocracy that  finally  prevailed  in  Greece. 

Our  readers,  we  hope,  will  not  understand  us  to  say  that 
everything  was  pure  in  the  Italic  school,  that  no  error  crept 
into  it,  and  that  Pythagoras  himself  had  brought  from  his 
travels  the  real  outpouring  of  the  primitive  revelation.  Nothing 
is  farther  from  our  thoughts.  Egypt  and  India  had  strangely 
degenerated,  even  in  his  own  time,  and  Orpheus  himself,  that 
multiform  personage,  spoke  as  glowingly  of  the  Homeric  gods 
as  of  Zeus ;  deriving  His  name  from  Zrjv  and  from  big.  Py- 
thagoras brought  from  Egypt  or  India  his  doctrine  of  metemp- 
sychosis, as  a  system  of  expiation,  and  thus  tried  to  engraft 
on  the  Western  tree  the  most  flourishing  branch  of  supersti- 
tion blooming  in  the  East.  His  celebrated  speculations  on 
numbers  must  have  been  brought  from  Egypt  likewise,  and 
were  not  derived  from  any  respectable  antiquity ;  although  their 
chief  significance,  as  admitted  by  modern  interpreters,  namely, 
the  even  and  the  odd,  unity  and  duality,  the  single  and  the  mul- 
tiple, appears  to  have  been  fundamentally  the  great  primitive 
Hindoo  and  Egyptian  doctrine  of  the  world  coming  forth' from 
the  Supreme,  and  may  consequently  have  been  a  system  of  cos- 
mogony, erroneous  indeed,  yet  entirely  opposed  to  the  insen- 
sate theories  of  Greek  physical  philosophers,  and  far  superior  to 
them.  There  is  no  doubt  that  the  primitive  traditions  had  been 
already,  to  a  great  degree,  obscured,  when  the  philosopher  of 
Croton,  in  Southern  Italy,  wished  to  make  them  the  basis  of  his 
system.  Hence,  his  philosophy  could  not  save  the  Greek 
world.  He  himself  taught  his  disciples  to  conform  exteriorly 
to  the  prevalent  polytheism,  although  it  is  sure  that  he  did  not 
believe  in  it.  For,  if  many  false  theories  and  ideas  were  by 
him  propagated,  and  upheld  by  the  authority  of  his  great  name, 
it  is  certain  that  his  esoteric  disciples  believed  in  One  God,  the 


372  GENTILISM. 

Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  infinitely  above  all  inferior 
gods  and  demons.  Hence,  on  creation  and  the  sutmnum  fionum 
the  teaching  of  Pythagoras  may  be  said  to  have  been  on  the 
side  of  the  truth ;  and,  if  not  completely,  at  least  far  more  so 
than  were  the  atheistical  and  materialist  doctrines  of  the  phi- 
losophers of  his  time.  Thus,  again,  is  confirmed  the  proposition 
with  which  we  started,  namely,  that  if  we  trace  back  the  his- 
tory of  mankind  in  any  part  of  the  globe,  as  near  to  his  origin 
as  it  is  possible  for  us  to  do,  we  find  invariably  the  great  and 
saving  dogma  of  One  God,  Creator  and  Ruler  of  the  universe, 
together  with  simple,  noble,  and  comparatively  pure  morals,  as 
were  those  of  the  Pythagoreans ;  and  if  we  retrace  our  steps 
backwards  towards  later  times,  the  more  corrupt,  absurd,  and 
revolting  become  the  religion,  institutions,  and  social  customs 
of  all  nations,  until  we  reach  the  period  just  before  the  advent 
of  the  true  Redeemer,  when  debasement  had,  we  may  say, 
reached  its  lowest  depths.  So  true  is  it  that  the  progress  of 
mankind  has  ever  been  in  a  downward  direction;  and  more 
particularly  in  the  ancient  world. 


III. 


These  few  words  must  suffice  for  the  Italic  school.  We 
come  now  to  the  Academy ;  we  mean  the  old  Academy,  not 
the  caricature  invented  by  Carneades,  but  the  real  foundation 
of  Plato,  the  great  disciple  of  Socrates.  We  have  said  that  it 
is  a  second  branch  of  traditionalist  philosophy,  and  we  must 
now  explain  fully  our  meaning.  We  are  far  from  pretending 
that  everything  in  Platonic  doctrines  was  derived  from  tradi- 
tion, for  that  could  not  be  said  even  of  Pythagorisni.  Such  a 
powerful  mind  as  that  of  the  founder  of  the  Academy  could 
not  but  have  thoughts  of  its  own;  and  these  thoughts  were 
most  brilliant  and  profound.  Much  that  he  wrote  was  the 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  373 

genuine,  unassisted  offspring  of  his  own  intellect ;  and  there 
was  in  his  character,  as  a  writer,  a  striking  originality.  He 
united  in  his  own  person,  more,  perhaps,  than  any  other  author 
of  ancient  or  modern  times,  a  most  dazzling  imagination  with 
the  deepest  reasoning  faculty ;  so  that  the  reader  scarcely  knows 
which  to  admire  the  most,  his  biilliancy  or  his  depth.  Even 
in  what  he  did  not  invent,  he  was  truly  original  by  making 
it  his  own.  He  had  certainly  received  from  others,  as  we  shall 
see,  the  great  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  Godhead.  But  he  proved 
it  as  no  one  else  had  done  before  him ;  chiefly  from  the  innate 
sense  of  the  beautiful.  As  one  of  his  most  recent  biographers, 
unknown  to  us,  has  justly  said :  "  "With  Plato  the  foundation 
of  beauty  is  a  reasonable  orcer,  addressed  to  the  imagination 
through  the  senses — i.  e.,  sy  mmetry  in  form,  and  harmony  in 
sounds,  the  principles  of  which  are  as  certain  as  the  laws  of 
logic,  mathematics,  and  morals — all  equally  necessary  products 
of  eternal  intellect,  acting  by  the  creation,  and  by  the  compre- 
hension of  well-ordered  forms,  and  well-harmonized  forces,  in 
rich  and  various  play  through  the  frame  of  the  universe ;  and 
the  ultimate  ground  of  this  lofty  and  coherent  doctrine  of  in- 
tellectual, moral,  and  sesthetical  harmonies  lies  with  Plato, 
where  alone  it  can  lie,  in  the  unity  of  a  Supreme,  reasonable, 
self-existent  intelligence,  whom  we  call  God,  the  fountain  of 
all  force,  and  the  Creator  of  all  order  in  the  universe  ;  the  sum  of 
whose  most  exalted  attributas,  and  the  substantial  essence  of 
whose  perfection  may,  as  contrasted  with  our  finite  and  partial 
aspects  of  things,  be  expressed  by  the  simple  term  Tb  dyadbv — 
the  GOOD." 

We  do  not,  therefore,  call  Plato  a  traditionalist  philosopher, 
because  of  his  being  merely  a  copyist  and  collector  of  texts. 
He  is  indeed  exactly  the  reverse.  He  seldom  quotes  his  author- 
ities. He  never  .says  :  "Such  a  man  has  said  so  and  so,  there- 
fore we  ought  to  believe  him."  He  acknowledges  the  infirm- 
ity of  the  human  intellect,  and  asserts  that  many  things  must 


374  GENTILISM. 

remain  unknown  or  doubtful  to  us,  until  a  teacher  from  heaven 
comes  to  take  the  spiritual  guidance  of  mankind ;  and  this  does 
not  exhibit  much  reliance  on  previous  testimony.  Yet,  he  un- 
doubtedly consulted  at  all  times  what  had  been  said  or  written 
before  him  ;  and  wherever  he  found  truth  he  took  it  and  made 
it  his  own  by  giving  it  a  Platonic  aspect,  if  we  may  use  the  ex- 
pression. He  was  far,  therefore,  from  rejecting  tradition ;  but 
on  the  contrary,  he  collected  the  golden  coin  scattered  by  it 
here  and  there,  and  made  it  henceforth  a  treasure  for  mankind ; 
for  those  at  least  anxious  to  profit  by  it.  But  we  must  here 
enter  somewhat  more  into  detail  as  the  subject  is  of  some  im- 
portance, and  requires  to  be  clearly  understood. 

13y  comparing  what  St.  Augustine  and  Diogenes  Laertius 
say  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  we  find  that,  essentially  and  on 
the  whole,  there  was  nothing  completely  original  in  it,  and  that 
its  founder  borrowed  outlines  and  hints  from  others.  The  great 
Doctor  of  the  West  (De  Civ.  Dei.,  Lib.  viii.,  cap.  4,)  says  that 
"  Plato  made  three  distinct  parts  of  philosophy  :  the  first,  Ethics 
(moralem),  whose  object  is  to  regulate  human  actions ;  the  sec- 
ond, Physics  (naturalem),  intent  on  the  contemplation  of  the 
universe ;  the  third,  Intellectual,  by  which  the  true  is  distin- 
guished from  the  false."  Diogenes  Laertius  states  .positively  in 
his  "  Life  of  Plato,"  that  he  "  united  in  his  philosophy  the 
doctrines  of  Heraclitus,  Pythagoras,  and  Socrates.  In  Physics 
(rayap  alaOrjra),  he  followed  Heraclitus ;  in  the  things  of  the 
Intellect  (ra  6e  vorjra\  Pythagoras ;  in  Ethics  (TO,  ds  Tro/lmKa), 
Socrates."  St.  Augustine  himself,  a  few  sentences  before  the 
one  we  have  quoted,  says,  what  all  men  know,  that  he  followed 
in  morals  the  "  discipline  "  of  Socrates ;  and  that  in  Italy,  where 
he  travelled,  "  he  had  easily  comprehended  all  the  tenets  oi!  the 
Italic  school,  under  the  tuition  of  its  most  eminent  teachers." 
And  what  is  still  more  to  our  purpose,  Apuleius  (in  Platonem), 
says  expressly  that,  "  although  he  had  composed  the  body  of 
his  philosophy  with  members  acknowledging  a  various  origin  " 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  375 

— we  translate  literally  this  very  pretentious  author — "the 
natural  part  from  Heraclitus,  the  intellectual  from  Pythagoras, 
and  the  moral  from  Socrates ;  yet  he  had  made  an  homogeneous 
body  of  the  whole,  as  if  he  had  given  it  birth  himself."  The 
reader  will  forgive  the  unseemly  metaphor  on  account  of  the 
perfectly  just  idea  it  conveys.  Did  Plato,  however,  really  adopt 
the  physical  theory  of  Heraclitus  ?  St.  Augustine  does  not 
say  a  word  of  this  cosmical  theorist,  as  having  had  anything  to 
do  in  the  formation  of  the  system  of  the  first  Academy ;  but  he 
alludes  to  Socrates  and  Pythagoras  as  having  had  a  great  influ- 
ence in  imparting  to  Plato  their  respective  doctrine  on  ethics 
and  metaphysics.  It  seems  certain,  it  is  true,  that  the  founder 
of  the  Academy,  when  quite  a  young  man,  studied  physical 
science  under  Cratylus,  the  disciple  of  Heraclitus,  and  even 
listened  to  the  lesson  of  Hermogenes,  a  teacher  of  the  atheistic 
tenets  of  Parmenides,  who  pretended  that  "  creation  is  impos- 
sible," because  it  supposes  previous  non-existence,  and  non-ex- 
istence is  simply  inconceivable.  But  we  know  well  that,  for- 
tunately, young  students  do  not  admit  all  the  vagaries  of  their 
teachers,  and  that  when  they  happen  to  have  done  it,  in  after- 
life they  modify  often  what  they  had  heard,  should  they  hap- 
pen to  have  any  mind  of  their  own.  The  imaginative  Plato 
may  have  had  all  his  life  a  great  idea  of  fire  or  caloric,  as.  a 
noble  and  active  element ;  but  he  did  not  certainly  attribute  to 
it  all  the  marvels  of  creation  without  the  intervention  of  God, 
which  was  the  doctrine  of  Heraclitus. 

But  we  may  well  here  set  aside  whatever  Plato  might  have 
received  from  Heraclitus  and  Socrates,  to  speak  only  of  the 
doctrines  which  the  Pythagorean  school  handed  down  to  him. 
For,  as  we  saw,  this  school  had  collected  many  tenets  held  by 
more  ancient  sages,  and  which  formed  a  great  part  of  what  we 
call  here  "  old  traditions."  There  was  nothing  of  the  kind  in 
the  physical  teaching  of  Heraclitus,  and  scarcely  anything  prop- 
erly traditional  in  the  moral  discussions  of  Socrates,  who 


376  GENTILISM. 

always  called  the  attention  of  his  hearers  to  their  own  con- 
sciousness, as  the  principles  of  right  or  wrong  are  inscribed  in 
the  hearts  of  all. 

If  there  is  anything  certain  in  the  life  of  Plato,  it  is  his  con- 
stant intercourse  with  the  philosophers  of  the  Italic  school. 
In  Sicily,  where  he  sojourned  three  different  times,  he  became 
acquainted  at  the  court  of  Dionysius — both  the  elder  and  the 
younger — with  the  most  celebrated  Pythagoreans  of  his  time. 
He  made  similar  acquaintances  in  Italy,  where  he  also  resided 
for  a  time,  although  a  few  modern  critics  have  doubted  it 
against  the  testimony  of  all  antiquity. 

He  received  from  these  various  teachers  the  doctrine  of 
transmigration,  or  metempsychosis,  which  he  certainly  up- 
holds ;  that  of  numbers,  to  which  he  often  alludes ;  the  general 
spiritualistic  tendency  of  his  teaching,  in  opposition  to  the 
thorough  materialism  and  realism  of  the  Sophists ;  and,  finally, 
no  doubt,  the  striking  affirmation  so  often  repeated  in  his 
writings  of  the  unity  of  the  Godhead.  Even,  strange  to  say, 
his  doctrine  on  "  ideas,"  which  seems  to  be  so  purely  Platonic, 
is  proved  to  be  derived  from  the  Pythagorean  Epi  charm  us,  as 
stated  in  the  life  of  Plato  by  Diogenes  Laertius ;  so  that  there 
was  really  less  originality  and  inventive  genius  in  the  mind  of 
Plato  "than  there  seems  to  be  at  first  sight.  In  reading  the 
verses  of  the  great  Pythagorean  poet,  Epicharmus,  preserved 
in  the  "  Lives  of  the  Philosophers,"  and  placed  by  the  author 
in  juxtaposition  with  the  very  text  of  Plato,  it  looks  occasion- 
ally like  downright  plagiarism  ;  and  the  modern  reader  is  sur- 
prised to  find  that  it  was  in  a  comic  poet  that  the  friend  of 
Socrates  found  many  links  of  his  pet  theory  on  "  ideas."  But 
it  must  be  allowed  that  Epicharmus  was  a  comic  poet  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  subsequent  Aristophanes,  and  even  from  Me- 
nander.  It  must  have  been  something  more  than  mere  wit 
which  Plato  did  not  hesitate  to  place  on  a  par  with  the  high 
thoughts  of  Homer  himself , 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  377 

The  importance  of  the  matter,  left  almost  entirely  aside  by 
all  modern  writers  on  the  founder  of  the  Academy,  obliges  us 
to  insist  yet  longer  on  the  intimate  connection  which  existed 
at  all  times  between  this  philosopher  and  the  Pythagoreans  of 
the  same  age.  It  is  alluded  to  by  Cicero  as  well  as  by  St.  Augus- 
tine. He  writes  (De  finibus,  v.  29) :  "  We  all  wish  to  live 
happy" — to  know,  consequently,  the  summum  fionum — "we 
Lave,  therefore,  to  see  if  we  can  find  it  in  the  doctrine  of  phi- 
losophers. T-hey  certainly  promise  it  to  us.  If  they  did  not, 
what  motive  acted  upon  Plato  when  he  travelled  through 
Egypt  to  receive  from  foreign  priests  the  doctrine  of  num- 
bers and  of  things  divine  ?  "Why  did  he  go  later  to  Tarentum 
to  see  Archytas  ?  Why  to  Locri  to  hear  the  Pythagoreans, 
Echecrates,  Timoeus,  Acrion  ?  Was  it  not  in  order  to  consult 
Pythagoras,  after  Socrates  ?  etc."'  St.  Jerome,  likewise,  is 
eloquent  on  the  subject,  and  confirms  admirably  what  was  pre- 
viously said  on  the  traditionalist  character  of  the  friend  of 
Socrates  :  "  Thus  Plato"  (Ad  Paulinum,  Epist.  liii.)  "  per- 
formed a  laborious  pilgrimage  to  Egypt,  and  to  Tarentum,  and 
all  along  that  shore  of  Italy  called  Magna  Grcecia,  in  order 
that,  being  a  master  and  full  of  influence  at  Athens,  where  the 
halls  of  the  Academy  resounded  with  his  eloquence,  he  might 
become  a  pilgrim  and  a  disciple ;  and  he  preferred  to  learn 
modestly  the  doctrine  of  others  rather  than  to  teach  imprudently 
his  own.  While  thus  engaged  in  the  pursuit  of  philosophy 
through  the  whole  globe,  he  was  caught  by  pirates,  sold  to  a 
cruel  tyrant ;  but  though  a  captive,  bound  with  chains,  and 
obliged  to  work  like  a  slave,  he  was,  in  fact,  greater  than  the 
one  who  bought  him,  because  he  was  a  philosopher." 

Isaac  Casanbon,  in  his  notes  on  Diogenes  Laertius,  remarks 
also  that  Proclus  (in  Timceum)  often  shows  the  identity  of  the 
doctrine  of  Plato  with  that  of  Pythagoras  ;  and  the  details  he 
gives  are  quite  convincing. 

But  we  find  in  the  very  letters  of  Plato  himself,  and  in  other 


378  GENTILISM. 

texts  of  ancient  authors,  interesting  details  still  further  con- 
firming our  allegation. 

Of  all  the  correspondence  of  Plato,  only  thirteen  letters 
have  been  preserved.  Of  these  the  first  is  from  his  friend 
Dion,  and  the  genuineness  of  the  two  last  has  been  contested, 
we  do  not  see,  indeed,  for  what  reason.  Their  main  object  has 
reference  only  to  the  relations  of  the  Athenian  philosopher 
with  Dionysius,  the  tyrant  of  Syracuse.  Yet  we  may  say  that, 
in  these  few  scraps  of  literary  intercourse,  there  are  abundant 
proofs  of  Pythagorean  influence  over  the  mind  of  the  writer. 
Two  of  the  letters  are  addressed  to  Archytas  of  Tarentum,  and 
in  the  others,  chiefly  in  the  seventh,  the  longest  and  most  im- 
portant, frequent  mention  is  made  of  the  Tarentine  philoso- 
pher, one  of  the  most  celebrated  characters  of  that  period, 
and  one  of  the  most  ardent  friends  of  Plato.  It  is  known  that 
Archytas  was  not  only  a  great  mathematician,  one  of  the  most 
celebrated  of  antiquity,  and  a  discoverer  of  several  most  inter- 
esting theorems,  as  well  as  of  practical  applications  of  mathe- 
matics to  art ;  not  only  a  statesman,  as  all  Pythagoreans  were, 
more  or  less,  who  raised  to  a  high  pitch  the  prosperity  of  his 
native  city ;  but  that  he  was  also  a  fervent  adherent  to  the  doc- 
trines of  the  Italic  school ;  the  chief  of  it,  in  fact,  in  his  time  ; 
and  thus  he'  made  Tarentum  the  headquarters  of  this  noble 
sect  of  philosophers.  He  is  seldom  mentioned  in  the  letters  of 
Plato  without  some  allusion  to  his  friends,  who  formed  a 
society  with  him,  as  all  Pythagoreans  did. 

Archytas  was,  in  fact,  the  head  of  the  Italic  sshool  at  that 
epoch.  He  once  saved  the  life  of  Plato,  whom  Dionysius  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  kill.  And  although  the  Athenian  philoso- 
pher was  not  always  on  the  best  terms  with  many  of  his  friends, 
and  even  quarrelled  occasionally  with  those  with  whom  he  was 
the  most  intimate,  as  he  did  once  with  his  bosom  friend  Dion, 
there  is  not  a  word  intimating  that  throughout  his  intercourse 
with  Archytas,  there  ever  existed  the  least  coldness  or  altera- 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  379 

tion  of  friendship  between  them.  If  the  whole  correspondence 
of  Plato  had  been  preserved,  we  should  have,  no  doubt,  more 
positive  proofs  on  the  subject.  Yet  there  are,  in  one  of  the 
letters,  some  indications  that,  on  both  sides,  inquiries  were 
going  on  about  earlier  traditions,  or,  as  the  letter  calls  them, 
"  some  memorials."  It  is  the  twelfth,  and  as  it  is  short,  we 
give  it  entire  on  account  of  its  importance  :  "  Plato  to  Archy- 
tas  of  Tarentum — prosperity."  ""With  what  wonderful  de- 
light did  we  receive  the  memorials  which  came  from  you,  and 
admired  ardently  everything  of  the  writer's.  To  us  he  appear- 
ed a  man  worthy  of  his  celebrated  ancestors.  For  they  are 
said  to  have  been  ten  thousand  in  number ;  and  they  were,  as 
the  story  handed  down  declares,  the  best  of  all  those  Trojans, 
who  during  the  reign  of  Laomedon  removed  themselves  from 
their  native  land. 

"  With  respect  to  the  memorials  in  my  possession,  about 
which  you  have  sent  to  me,  they  are  not  yet  in  the  shape  I 
would  wish  them  to  be.  Such  as  they  are,  however,  I  send 
them  to  you.  As  to  the  care  to  take  of  them,  we  are  of  one 
mind,  so  that  there  is  no  need  of  exhortation." 

This  is  certainly  obscure,  but  it  becomes  clear  when  we  read 
the  letter  of  Archytas  to  which  this  of  Plato  was  an  answer. 
It  is  given  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  and  confirms  everything  we 
suspected : 

"  It  is  well  of  you  to  have  recovered  from  your  sickness ; 
for  this  we  have  heard  not  only  from  your  own  letter,  but  also 
from  the  friends  of  Damiscus.  We  have  not  failed  to  fulfil 
your  intentions  with  respect  to  the  memorials :  we  went  our- 
selves to  the  Lncanians,  and  found  there  the  grand-children  of 
Ocellus.  We  have  in  our  possession  the  existing  documents 
on  his  laws,  on  his  manner  of  government,  on  the  holiness  of 
his  time,  and  the  whole  genealogy  of  the  Sept.  We  send  you 
some  of  them ;  if  we  can  find  more,  you  shall  receive  them." 

This  is  certainly  a  very  important  document ;  and  we  have 


380  GENTILISM. 

a  right  to  wonder  that  no  one,  to  our  knowledge,  has  remarked 
it  and  commented  upon  it.  Ocellus  Lucanus  was  a  celebrated 
Pythagorean  author,  of  whom  we  possess  yet  a  work  on  'cos-, 
mogony.  Plato  had  evidently  read  it,  and  probably  other 
books  of  the  same  writer  which  have  perished.  He  inquired 
about  it  from  his  friend  Archytas,  who  received  from  the  pos- 
terity of  Ocellus  documents  which  concerned  him .  personally 
as  a  chief  of  tribe,  as  a  lawgiver,  and  a  worshipper  of  the 
deity,  for  we  cannot  find  any  other  meaning  in  the  letter 
quoted  above ;  the  word  "  holiness,"  boioTfy,  is  to  be  remarked. 
We  see  the  interest  Plato  took  in  these  investigations.  He 
made  use  of  them  certainly  in  the  composition  of  his  last 
works,  the  Republic,  the  Laws,  the  Timseus.  It  was  not,  there- 
fore, his  original  ideas  he  unfolded  in  these  great  compositions ; 
although  he  gave  them  a  touch  of  his  genius,  and  made  them 
his  own  by  the  originality  of  his  accessory  thoughts,  and  the 
brilliancy  of  his  imagination.  We  can  imagine  with  what 
ardor  the  warm-hearted  Plato  threw  himself  into  those  anti- 
quarian researches,  and  what  rich  discoveries  he  made  in  those 
unexplored  Pelasgic  fields.  For  it  was  really  Pelasgic  lore 
that  fell  into  his  hands.  He  speaks  himself  of  the  times  of 
Laomedon,  anterior  to  Priam ;  he  speaks  of  a  single  tribe  of 
the  clan  of  Ocellus,  to  the  number  of  ten  thousand  emigrating 
to  a  foreign  land,  probably  to  Lucania  in  Southern  Italy ;  he 
speaks  of  the  holiness  then  prevailing,  when  Ocellus  was  giv- 
ing laws  to  the  people  of  Magna  Graecia.  Others  gave  laws 
at  the  same  time  and  in  the  same  country ;  the  name  of  Zaleu- 
cus  and  Charondas  are  well  known  as  legislators  in  Southern 
Italy  ;  that  of  Ocellus,  who  published  these  enactments  spoken 
of  here,  has  never  come  to  us,  except  in  this  fragment,  as  a 
lawgiver.  But  it  was  chiefly  holiness — baior^g — a  word  whose 
meaning  includes  both  moral  purity  and  the  light  worship  of 
God,  which  was  of  a  nature  to  attract  the  great  mind  of  the 
friend  of  Socrates. 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  381 

A  short  phrase  of  Laertius  confirms  this :  "  Some  authors 
relate — and  Satyras  is  one  of  them — that  he  wrote  to  Dion,  in 
Sicily,  to  buy  for  him  from  Philolaus,  three  books  of  Pytha- 
goras, at  the  price  of  a  hundred  minae." 

Plato  was  rich,  although  not  excessively  so,  as  few  Greeks 
ever  were ;  and  he  shows  in  many  passages  of  his  writings, 
chiefly  in  his  letters  to  Dionysius,  that  he  took  good  care  of 
his  own,  and  did  not  like  to  be  imposed  upon  by  those  from 
whom  he  purchased.  Yet  there  was  that  greedy  Philolaus, 
who  possessed  three  short  works  of  Pythagoras  himself,  and 
wanted  a  price,  which  in  our  days  would  be  called  over-ex- 
travagant— nearly  five  hundred  pounds  sterling.  There  was 
evidently  a  long  negotiation  going  on  on  the  subject,  ending 
by  Plato  giving  in,  and  consenting  to  the  exorbitant  price  de- 
manded by  the  owner.  The  fact  is  certain;  for  not  only 
Laertius  gives  these  short  details,  but  Aulu  Gellius  relates  the 
same  fact  from  other  authorities,  and  gives  a  slightly  altered 
price  ;  he  makes  it  "  ten  thousand  denarii." 

Plato,  surely,  intended  to  make  use  of  these  books  and  docu- 
ments, which  he  bought  at  so  dear  a  price,  and  at  such  an 
evident  inconvenience  of  his  friends ;  and  the  use  he  would 
make  of  them,  would  be  to  read  them,  collect  extracts  from 
them,  and  shape  his  thoughts  in  conformity  with  those  ex- 
tracts. 

But  in  addition  to  Plato  and  the  Pythagoreans,  there  were  a 
host  of  sages  and  writers  who  evidently  did  not  propagate  their 
own  individual  thoughts,  but  formed  a  large  school  to  whose 
charge  seemed  to  be  entrusted  the  deposit  of  old  truths  com- 
municated ages  before  to  mankind  at  large.  Thus,  the  asser- 
tion we  made  is  abundantly  proved,  that,  in  spite  of  the  com- 
plete disintegration  of  pure  dogmas  by  a  totally  corrupt  and 
individualized  polytheism,  truth  itself  had  not  perished,  but 
remained  scattered  in  the  teachings  of  many  men  belonging  to 
the  Italic  school  and  the  Academy. 


382  GENTILISM. 


IY. 


Had  they  not,  besides,  "  sacred  accounts  of  the  olden  times," 
different  from  both  schools,  yet  containing  holy  doctrines  for- 
gotten by  the  majority  of  their  contemporaries,  but  which 
they  cherished  and  tried  to  preserve  and  propagate  ?  In  the 
seventh  letter  of  Plato  we  find  the  following :  "  In  things 
inanimate,  there  is  nothing  either  good  or  evil  worthy  of 
mention  ;  but  good  or  ill  will  happen  to  each  soul,  either 
existing  with  the  body  or  separated  from  it.  It  is  on  this  ac- 
count most  important  to  trust  powerfully  (ovrcjf)  to  the  sacred 
accounts  of  tlie  olden  times,  which  inform  us  that  the  soul  is 
immortal,  and  has  judges  of  its  conduct,  and  suffers  the 
greatest  punishments  after  it  is  liberated  from  the  body. 
Hence  every  one  must  be  persuaded  that  it  is  a  lesser  evil  to 
suffer  from,  than  to  do,  the  greatest  sins  and  injuries.  This, 
indeed,  the  man  who  is  fond  of  money  and  poor  in  soul  does 
not  hear ;  and  should  he  hear,  he  laughs  it  down,  thinking  it 
wise  to  take  his  fill,  like  a  wild  beast,  of  food  and  drink,  or 
to  delight  in  servile  and  disgraceful  carnal  pleasures.  Being 
blind,  he  is  not  able  to  see  that  evil,  ever  united  to  each  act  of 
wrong,  follows  him  in  his  insatiate  cravings  for  what  is  un- 
holy, and  that  he  has  to  drag  along  with  himself  the  long 
chain  of  his  wrong-doings,  both  while  he  is  moving  along  upon 
earth,  and  when  he  shall  take,  under  the  earth "  (we  would 
say  to  hell),  "  an  endless  journey  of  dishonor  and  frightful 
miseries." 

This  was  the  style  suggested  by  these  "  sacred  accounts  of 
the  olden  time,"  and  we  doubt  if  a  Christian  orator  could 
express  himself  in  fitter  terms  and  more  glowing  language. 
We  are,  indeed,  surprised  to  find  it  under  the  pen  of  a  writer 
who  lived  in  the  midst  of  the  moral  rottenness  of  the  brilliant 
age  of  Pericles ;  but  to  understand  it  without  difficulty,  we 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  383 

have  merely  to  remember  that  it  was  cm,  echo,  yet  vibrating, 
of  a  divine  -voice,  uttered  many  ages  before. 

There  is  occasionally  in  the  Athenian  philosopher  a  Chris- 
tian sense  which  is  inexplicable,  except  on  the  above  hypo- 
thesis. For  it  is  not  only  in  the  letter  above  quoted  that  we 
find  it  so  strangely  and  powerfully  expressed.  In  the  "  Re- 
public," for  example  (Chap,  v.),  where  is  discussed,  the  ques- 
tion, Which  is  the  happier  life,  that  of  the  just  man  persecuted 
as  a  criminal,  or  of  the  unjust  man  honored,  and  apparently 
successful  in  all  his  undertakings?  "  There  will  be  no  difficulty," 
said  Glaucon,  in  ascertaining  what  h'f  e  will  be  the  lot  of  either. 
"  It  shall  be  told,  then  ;  and  even  if  it  should  be  told  with  more 
than  unusual  bluntness,  think  not  that  it  is  I  who  tell  it,  Soc- 
rates, but  those  who  prefer  injustice  to  justice.  These,  then, 
will  say,  that  the  just  man  thus  situated"  (considered  as  a  crim- 
inal), "  will  be  scourged,  tortured,  fettered,  have  his  eyes  burnt 
out,  and,  lastly,  suffering  all  manner  of  evil,  will  be  crucified ; 
and  he  will  know,  too,  that,  in  the  common  opinion,  a  man 

should  desire  not  to  be,  but  to  appear,  just The  other, 

on  the  contrary,  holds  the  magistracy  in  the  State, ....  marries 
into  whatever  family  he  pleases,  ....  forms  agreements,  and 
joins  in  partnership  with  whom  he  likes,  succeeds  in  all  his 
projects  for  gain,  because  he  scruples  not* to  commit  injustice ; 
....  and  to  the  gods,  as  respects  sacrifices  and  offerings,  he  not 
only  sufficiently,  but  magnificently,  both  sacrifices,  and  makes 
offerings,  serving  far  better  than  the  just  man,  the  gods  them- 
selves, of  whom,  consequently,  he  ought  to  be  a  greater  favor- 
ite." These  are  the  reasons  of  those  who  prefer  injustice  to  jus- 
tice. And  after  discussing  the  question  at  length,  Plato  states 
(Chap,  ix.)  that  "  a  man  must  be  able  to  show  what  has  been 
asserted  so  far  as  true,  to  be  false,  and  fully  know  and  ac- 
knowledge that  justice  is  best,"  even  in  the  extreme  case  pre- 
viously supposed. 

It  is  known  that  some  Greek  Fathers  of  the  Church  have 
26 


384  GENTILISM. 

concluded,  from  the  description  of  the  just  man  under  perse- 
cution, that  Plato  had  read  the  prophecies  of  Isaiah  and  the 
other  Hebrew  seers.  We  do  not  think  that  it  can  be  justly 
inferred ;  but  there  is  certainly  in  the  passage  a  perfume  of 
pure  and  perfect  morality,  so  akin  to  the  Christian  feeling, 
that  it  is  hard  to  understand  how  Plato  or  Socrates  himself 
could  have  drawn  it  from  his  own  understanding,  so  that  it 
seems  very  likely  that  they  had  derived  it  from  those  "  sacred 
accounts  of  olden  time  "  mentioned  above. 

In  the  same  category  may  be  placed  the  following  quotation 
of  Hesiod,  and  the  short  comment  on  it  given  by  our  author 
(Chap,  vii.) : 

"  How  vice  at  once- and  easily  we  cboose  ! 
The  way  so  smooth  ;  its  dwelling,  too,  so  nigh  1 
Toil  before  virtue " 

— "  and  a  certain  road,"  adds  Plato,  "  both  long  and  steep  ! " 
He  alludes  evidently  to  some  ancient  writer  beside  Hesiod  ; 
and  we  know  how  the  same  thought  is  expressed  in  the  Gospel 
in  nearly  the  same  words :  "  How  narrow  and  hard  is  the 
road. .  .  .  .  " 

But  whatsis  more  wonderful  still,  is  that  the  most  arduous 
of  all  Christian  precepts,  and  certainly  the  most  unintelligible 
to  the  mere  reason  of  man — the  forgiveness  of  injury — is  so 
Mearly  stated  in  the  "  Crito,"  that  the  first  reading  of  it  is 
simply  startling  to  any  one  accustomed  to  pagan  ethics,  so  as 
to  induce  him  to  read,  again  and  again,  the  passage,  to  find  out 
if  he  had  not 'mistaken  the  meaning. 

"  Socrates.  Is  injustice,  on  every  account,  both  evil  and  dis- 
graceful to  him  who  commits  it  ?  Do  we  ajlmit  this  or  not  ? 

"  Crito.  We  do  admit  it. 

"  Socr.  On  no  account,  therefore,  ought Ve  to  act  unjustly. 

"  Cri.  Surely  not. 

"  Socr.  Neither  ought  one  who  is  injured  to  return  the  injury, 


HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  385 

• 

as  the  multitude  thinks,  since  it  is  on  no  account  right  to  act 
unjustly. 

"  Cri.  It  appears  not. 

"  Socr.  What,  then  ?     Is  it  right  to  do  evil,  Crito,  or  not  ? 

"  Cri.  Surelj  it  is  not  right,  Socrates. 

"  Socr.  But  what  ?  To  do  evil  in  return  when  one  has  been 
evil-entreated,  is  that  right  or  not  ? 

"  Cri.  By  no  means. 

"  Socr.  For  to  do  evil  to  men  differs  in  no  respect  from  com- 
mitting injustice. 

"  Cri.  You  say  truly. 

*/  t/ 

"  Socr.  It  is  not  right,  therefore,  to  return  an  injury,  or  to  do 
evil  to  any  man,  however  one  may  have  suffered  from  him. 
But  take  care,  Crito,  that  in  allowing  these  things,  you  do  not 
allow  them  contrary  to  your  own  opinion.  For  I  know,  that  to 
some  few  only  those  things  appear  to  be  true.  These  men, 
consequently,  and  they  to  whom  they  do  not  seem  true,  have  no 
sentiment  in  common,  and  must  needs  despise  each  other,  while 
they  look  to  each  other's  opinions.  Consider  well,  then,  whether 
you  coincide  and  think  with  me ;  and  whether  we  can  begin, 
our  considerations  from  this  point,  that  it  is  never  right,  either 
to  do  an  injury,  or  to  return  an  injury^  or  when  one  has  been 
evil-entreated  to  revenge  oneself  by  doing  evil  in  return,  or  do 
you  dissent  from  and  not  coincide  in  this  principle  ?  It  has 
been  my  conviction  for  a  long  time,  and  it  is  still  so  now  ;  but 
if  you,  in  any  respect,  think,  otherwise,  say  so,  and  inform  me. 
Should  you  persist  in  your  former  opinion,  which  is  mine,  hear 
what  follows. 

"  Cri.  I  do  persist  in  it,  and  think  with  you.  Speak  on, 
then. 

We  ought  not  thus  to  be  surprised,  if  such  was  the  doctrine 
not  only  of  Socrates,  but  of  Plato  his  disciple,  to  hear  him  as- 
sert that  a  man  who  knows  he  is  to  be  '  judged  after  his  death,' 
ought  to  reflect  often  on  the  morality  of  his  actions,  in  order 


386  GEl^TILISM. 

• 

to  prevent  the  future  judgment  by  that  of  his  own  conscience ; 
teaching  thus  clearly  the  practice  of  the  daily  exarnen,  so  well 
known  to  Christians.  The  real  text,  and  the  very  passage 
where  it  is  to  be  found,  escapes  us  for  the  moment,  but  it  is 
certainly  expressed  as  clearly  as  we  assert. 

Should  any  reader  require  more  convincing  proofs  of  the 
spirit  of  traditional  inquiry  in  some,  at  least,  of  the  philosophi- 
cal sects  of  Greece,  he  will  find  a  large  number  of  them  in  the 
fourteenth '  chapter  of  the  fifth  book  of  the  Stromata  of  St. 
Clement,  whicli  has  for  its  heading :  "  The  Greek  Plagiarisms 
from  the  Hebrews."  He  will  find  there  that  Thales,  being 
asked,  "  If  a  man  could  elude  the  knowledge  of  the  Divine 
Being  while  doing  aught  ?"  He  answered  :  "  How  could  he, 
who  cannot  do  so  while  thinking  2"  And  "  the  Socratic  An- 
tisthenes,  paraphrasing  that  prophetic  utterance,  '  To  whom 
have  ye  likened  me  ?'  says  that  '  God  is  like  to  no  one ;  where- 
fore no  one  can  come  to  the  knowledge  of  Him  from  an 
image.' " 

St.  Clement  may,  in  this  long  chapter,  have  attributed  too 
uncritically  a  knowledge  of  the  Bible  to  Greek  philosophers ; 
but  many  of  their  utterances  are  so  repugnant  to  the  general 
opinions  of  their  time,  and  in  many  cases  to  their  own  ordinary 
ideas,  that  we  cannot  indeed  explain  many  of  them,  except  on 
the  supposition  that  they  came  from  an  older  and  holier  source, 
whose  stream  in  its  wanderings  had  at  last  reached  them. 


VI. 


But  this  very  fact  of  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  attributing 
to  the  Hebrew  traditions,  as  a  source,  many  of  the  thoughts 
and  maxims  of  Hellenic  philosophers,  seems  to  be  clashing  with 
our  general  assertion  referring  them  to  an  original  primitive 
revelation.  Yet,  both  derivations,  instead  of  contradicting, 


HELLEXIC    PHILOSOPHY.  387 

really  confirm  each  other.  In  comparing  together  the  primi- 
tive belief  of  Hindostan,  Egypt,  and  Greece,  and  finding  so 
many  points  of  agreement,  we  conclude  that  the  traditions  of 
these  three  races  came  from  a  time  previous  to  their  separation, 
an  epoch,  now  sufficiently  well  ascertained,  possibly  long  be- 
fore the  Mosaic  dispensation,  at  least  before  the  period  when 
it  became  capable  of  influencing  other  nations ;  and  that  the 
truths  common  to  those  great  races  came  from  the  very  origin 
of  mankind,  and  must  be  referred,  altogether,  to  the  patriarchal 
epoch.  But  nothing  could  be  farther  from  our  thoughts  than 
to  deny  the  subsequent  moral  and  religious  influence  of  the 
Hebrew  books  and  traditions  on  the  Gentile  nations  of  anti- 
quity. In  order  that  the  Jewish  people  and  religion  should 
have  such  an  influence,  God  placed  it  in  the  centre  of  the 
world,  and  willed  that  its  life  should  ebb  and  flow  in  the  very 
eddies  of  pagan  life,  so  that  Assyria,  Chaldsea,  Persia,  Egypt, 
Greece,  and  Rome  should  know  practically  the  great,  consist- 
ent, and  ever-accessible  monotheistic  people  of  antiquity,  as  an 
auxiliary  means  of  preserving  truth. 

But  the  Mosaic  revelation,  instead  of  being  antagonistic  to 
the  patriarchal  teaching,  was  only  a  development  of  it,  and 
a  more  definite  preparation  for  the  Redeemer.  One 
thing  is  sure,  however,  that  whatever  came  to  Greece  from 
Hindostan  could  not  have  passed  through  Judea,  as  there  is 
not  the  least  proof,  or  probability  even,  of  communication  be- 
tween both  countries ;  and  the  Hindoo  myths  must  have  been 
derived  from  a  higher  antiquity.  On  the  other  hand,  what- 
ever is  found  in  Hellenic  philosophers  as  evidently  taken  from 
the  Bible  and  later  Hebrew  traditions,  could  not  have  corne 
from  India ;  since  the  Pelasgians  and  Hellenes,  after  their  prim- 
itive migration,  never  kept  any  intercourse  whatever  with 
their  Aryan  ancestors.  And  it  is  proper  that  at  the  end  of  this 
chapter  a  word  should  be  said  of  this  last  kind  of  plagiarism, 
as  St.  Clement  calls  it. 


388  GENTILISM. 

(a).  First,  it  is  well  known  that  he  was  not  the  only- 
Father  of  the  Church  who  believed  in  that  intercourse  of  Gen- 
tile nations  with  the  Hebrews,  so  that  they — the  nations — had 
received  many  great  religious  truths  and  historical  traditions 
from  them.  Most  of  the  Greek  Fathers  were  of  the  same  opin- 
ion. Eusebius  of  Csesarea,  in  particular,  enumerates  in  his 
"  Propaideia,  or  Prseparatio  Evangelica,"  an  immense  number  of 
instances,  some  of  which  are  certainly  very  striking,  more  so,  ac- 
cording to  our  thinking,  than  most  of  those  quoted  by  Clement 
of  Alexandria.  Natalia  Alexander,  in  his  "  Historia  Eccles.  Yet. 
Test."  (Dissertatio  X.,  Prop,  ii.),  remarks  with  justice  that  the 
reflections  of  Eusebius,  in  his  Eleventh  Boo"k,  Chap,  xxvii.,  etc., 
are  in  truth  forcible  and  even  convincing;  and  that  any  one 
who  reads  those  chapters  with  attention,  cannot  but  believe 
that  much  of  what  the  "  divine  "  Plato  has  said  on  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul,  on  creation,  on  the  end  of  the  world,  on  the 
resurrection  of  the  dead — of  which^he  gives  an  example  such  as 
we  read  in  our  Lives  of  the  Saints — and  lastly  on  "  judgment," 
must  have  been  in  the  main  taken  from  our  Holy  Scripture. 

(5.)  In  the  second  place,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  many 
pagan  myths  were  mere  allegories  containing  Biblical  facts,  or 
at  least  alluding  to  them  and  supposing  them. 

Father  Guerin  Durocher,  in  his  "  Histoire  veritable  des 
Temps  Fabuleux,"  comments  at  length  on  many  of  them.  If, 
too  often,  his  conclusions  may  be  called  rather  fanciful,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  in  many  points  he  convinces  his  readers  of  the  truth 
of  his  explanations. 

(c).  More  singular  still,  the  thinkers  of  our  age  begin  to  come 
back  again  to  those  exegetist  interpretations  which  appeared  to 
have  been  abandoned  for  ever ;  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  Chap, 
vii.  of  his  "  Juventus  Mundi,"  not  only  refers  to  them  with 
approval,,  even  as  high  up  in  time  as  Homer  himself,  but  tries 
to  explain  the  process  as  it  took  place  in  antiquity,  which  no 
previous  author,  to  our  knowledge,  had  done. 


HELLENIC   PHILOSOPHY.  389 

Zeus — he  justly  remarks  —  in  his  Olympian  personality  is, 
with  respect  to  morality,  far  below  Apollo  and  Athene,  but  "  as 
the  traditional  representative  of  providence  and  the  Theistic 
idea,"  he  is  far  above  them.  Thus,  the  twoiold  character  of 
Zeus  in  Greek  mythology  is  accepted  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  it 
seems  to  be  by  the  generality  of  writers  in  our  age ;  and  as 
•  Olympian,  son  of  Kronos,  he  does  not  correspond  to  the  ideal 
of  God  in  the  Bible  anything  near  so  precisely  as  Apollo  and 
Athene  do.  The  following  are  his  words :  u  Many  elements  of 
the  Hebrew  traditions  recorded  in  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or 
otherwise  preserved  among  the  Jews  down  to  later  times,  ap- 
pear in  the  Olympian  court  of  Homer.  But  they  are  not  found 
in  all  the  personages  that  compose  the  assemblage ;  nor  even  in 
all  those  deities  whom,  from  various  kinds  of  evidence  in  the 
Poems,  we  perceive  to  have  been  fully  recognized  as  objects 
of  national  worship.  Further,  in  the  characters  where  the 
features  corresponding  with  Hebrew  traditions  mainly  appear, 
there  is  a  peculiar  elevation  of  tone,  and  a  remarkable  degree 
of  reverence  is  maintained  towards  them,  so  as  to  separate 
them,  not  indeed  by  an  uniform,  but  commonly  by  a  percepti- 
ble and  broad  line,  from  the  remainder  of  the  gods. 
'  "  Besides  the  idea  of  a  Deity  which  in  some  sense  is  three 
in  one,  the  traditions  traceable  in  Homer,  which  appear  to  be 
drawn  from  the  same  source  as  those  of  Holy  Scripture,  are 
chiefly  these : — (1.)  A  Deliverer,  conceived  under  the  double 
form,  first  of  the  '  seed  of  a  woman ' — a  Being  at  once  Divine 
and  human ;" — Mr.  Gladstone  understands  this  of  Apollo  ; 
"  secondly,  of  the  Logos,  the  "Word  or  Wisdom  of  God," 
meaning  no  doubt  Athene.  (2.)  "  Next,'  the  woman  whose 
seed  this  Redeemer  was  to  be  " — Leto.  (3.)  "  Next,  the  rain- 
bow considered  as  a  means,  or  a  sign,  of  communication  be- 
tween God  and  man — Iris.  And,  finally,  the  traditions  of  an 
Evil  Being,  together  with  his  ministers  working  under  the 
double  form  of  .  .  .  .  '  open  war,'  and  of  '  wiles ;'  as  a  rebel, 


390  GENTILISM. 

and  as  a  tempter.  This  last  tradition  is  indeed  shivered  into 
fragments,  such  as  the  giants  precipitated  into  Tartarus,  and  as 
Ate  roaming  on  the  earth The  other  four  traditions  ap- 
pear to  be  represented  in  the  persons  of  Apollo,  Athen£,  Leto, 
and  Iris If,  in  the  progress  of  time,  and  with  the  muta- 
tions which  that  system  gradually  underwent,  the  marks  of  the 
correspondence  with  the  Hebrew  records  became  more  faint, 
the  fact  even  raises  some  presumption  that,  were  we  enabled  to 
go  yet  further  back,  we  should  obtain  yet  fuller  and  clearer 
evidence  of  their  identity  of  origin  in  certain  respects." 

A  few  pages  back  the  same  author  had  already  made  the 
same  'assertion,  perhaps  even  in  stronger  terms,  and  had  tried 
to  explain  the  process  of  transmission  from  the  "  Hebrew  rec- 
ords," as  he  calls  them,  to  the  Hellenic  primitive  mythology. 

"  The  features  "  he  had  mentioned,  "  in  the  case  of  the  two 
first-named  deities  particularly  " — Apollo  and  Athene — "  im- 
part to  the  pictures  of  them  an  extraordinary  elevation  and 
force,  such  as  to  distinguish  them  broadly  from  the  delineations 
of  other  gods,  in  whom  these  particular  features  are  wanting. 
The  features  themselves  are  in  the  most  marked  correspond- 
ence with  the  Hebraic  traditions,  as  conveyed  in  the  books  of 
Holy  Scripture,  and  also  as  handed  down  in  the  auxiliary 
sacred  learning  of  the  Jews.  But  while  it  seems  impossible  to 
deny  the  correspondence  without  doing  violence  to  facts,  on 
the  other  hand  we  are  not  able  to  point  out  historically  the 
channel  of  communication  through  which  these  traditions  were 
conveyed  into  Greece,  and  became  operative  in  the  formation 
of  the  Olympian  scheme." 

•  Yet  Mr.  Gladstone  attempts  it,  and  although  with  much  dif- 
fidence he  supposes  "  that  the  Phoenician  navigators  offered  the 
natural  and  probable  explanation  of  any  such  phenomena.  Be- 
cause, on  the  one  hand,  we  know,  from  the  historic  books  of 
Scripture,  that  the  Phoenicians  were  at  an  early  date  in  habits 
of  intercourse  with  the  Jews;  while  on  the  other  hand,  they 


.  HELLENIC    PHILOSOPHY.  391 

• 

not  only  were  in  like  habits  with  the  Achaians  of  Homer,  but 
also,  as  far  as  we  can  discern,  no  other  nation  had  a  sensible 
amount  of  intercourse  with  Greece,  or  if  there  were  such,  it 
passed  under  the  Phosnician  name." 

And  the  writer  endeavors  to  give  greater  force  to  his  ideas 
by  bringing  forward  the  myth  of  Bellerophon,  which  he  tries 
to  prove  to  have  been  originally  Phrenician,  and  which,  in  his 
opinion,  is  a  legend  of  Joseph,  sinse  he  says,  "  there  is  a  strik- 
ing similarity  between  Bellerophon,  Solicited  by  the  wife  of 
Proitos,  and  Joseph,  by  the  wife  of  Potiphar." 

Whatever  strength  may  be  granted  to  this  last  supposition — 
and,  in  our  opinion,  there  is  very  little  probability  in  it,  since 
the  two  stories  of  Joseph  and  Bellerophon  are  completely  at 
variance  with  each  other  in  all  the  other  details — yet  the  hypo- 
theses of  Mr.  Gladstone  respecting  Apollo,  Athene,  Leto,  and 
Iris,  chiefly  on  the  two  first,  are  at  once  new  and  startling. 
His  subject  confined  his  researches  to  the  poems  of  Homer,  and 
the  very  idea  of  finding  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  analogies 
with  the  Bible,  appears  at  first  sight  almost  a  fantastic  one. 
Yet,  if  the  author  has  not  carried  his  theory  to  a  real  demon- 
stration, he  has  at  least  presented  it  with  so  much  plausibility 
as  to  make  it  probable  and  serious ;  a  result  which  would  nat 
be  so  successfully  attained,  if  in  our  day  the  theory  were  ap- 
plied to  long-subsequent  Hellenic  authors.  The  little  we  have 
said  may  be  considered  as  strictly  sufficient ;  yet  we  have  availed 
ourselves  only  of  the  kbor  of  ancient  authors,  and  we  could 
not  treat  the  subject  in  extenso.  The  learned  Huet,  Bishop  of 
Avrauches,  is,  we  think,  the  last  who  did  it,  at  least  in  an  ex- 
haustively erudite  manner  for  his  time,  in  his  "  Demonstration 
Evangelique."  But,  since  Huet,  many  discoveries  have  been 
made  in  the  field  of  philosophy,  with  respect  to  classical  Greek 
and  Latin  writers,  as  well  as  to  Christian  authors  of  the  first 
centuries.  The  same  subject  treated  exhaustively  in  our  days, 
with  the  help  furnished  by  the  German,  French,  and  English 


392  GENTILISM. 

editors  of  classics,  and  by  the  numerous  additions  made  to  the 
authentic  works  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  and  of  profane 
writers  of  antiquity,  by  such  men  as  Angelo  Mai,  would  surely 
bring  the  argument  so  near  to  a  demonstration,  that  all  would 
be  obliged  to  admit  that,  either  from  the  remnants  of  primi- 
tive revelation,  or  from  intercourse  with  the  Jews  and  the 
knowledge  of  Holy  Scripture,  the  Gentiles  of  Greece  and  Italy 
were  acquainted  with  many  primitive  truths  which  polytheism 
was  not  able  wholly  to  obliterate. 


CHAPTER  Yin. 


THE  GREEK  AND  LATIN  POETS  AS  GUARDIANS  OF  TRUTH. 


HELLENIC  traditional  philosophy  counteracted  to  a  great  ex- 
tent the  evil  consequences  of  an  unbridled  rationalism,  which 
in  Greece  threatened,  from  the  first,  to  make  atheism  and  ma- 
terialism everywhere  prevalent.  Either  the  primitive  traditions 
on  the  unity  of  God,  on  the  immortality  of  the  human  soul, 
on  the  eternity  of  rewards  or  punishments  after  death,  on  the 
sinfulness  of  man,  and  the  necessity  of  expiation,  etc.,  etc. ;  or 

• 

the  same  truths  and  many  others  contained  in  the  "  Hebrew 
records,"  as  Mr.  Gladstone  has  it,  became  the  heirloom  of 
Europe,  as  they  had  been  previously  of  Hindostan,  Bactriana, 
and  Egypt ;  and  this  chiefly  through  Pythagorism  and  Platon- 
ism.  Thus,  something  at  least  of  the  primitive  universality  or 
Catholicism,  as  we  expressed  it,  of  the  patriarchal  religion, 
continued  to  subsist  in  the  western  part  of  the  old  world,  as 
it  did  formerly  in  the  central  or  eastern  part  of  it.  Yet — and 
Mr.  Gladstone  remarks  it — the  primitive  brightness  of  the 
truth  gradually  grew  dimmer,  and  error  became  more  and  more 
prevalent ;  so  that,  according  to  him — and  we  agree  with  him 
perfectly  on  the  subject — the  higher  up  our  researches  extend 
in  antiquity,  the  more  pure  do  we  find  the  belief  of  mankind, 
and  the  more  resembling  our  own.  "  If  in  the  progress  of 
time,  and  with  the  mutations  which  that  (the  Homeric)  system 
underwent,  the  marks  of  the  correspondence  with  the  Hebrew 
records  became  more  faint,  the  fact  even  raises  some  presurnp- 

(393) 


394  GENTILISM. 

tion  that,  were  we  enabled  to  go  yet  further  back  (than  Homer), 
we  should  obtain  yet  fuller  and  clearer  evidence  of  their  iden- 
tity of  origin  in  certain  respects."  (p.  211.) 

This  chapter  in  its  entirety  will  be  devoted  to  showing 
how  that  tjie  poets,  who  were,  in  the  main,  guilty  of  introduc- 
ing idolatry  in  Europe,  were  nevertheless  the  true  preservers- of 
the  greatest  number  of.  old  traditions  handed  down  to  the  very 
times  of  our  Lord.  For  Poetry  is  truly  a  divine  gift,  and  can- 
not exist  without  a  kind  of  inspiration,  as  Plato  proves  in  one 
of  his  dialogues,  and  with  justice  did  Raphael,  in  representing 
her  on  the  walls  of  the  Vatican,  give  her  wings,  which  he  re- 
fused to  Philosophy.  "We  have  no  doubt  that,  if  Plato,  who 
was  constantly  looking  into  the  surviving  fragments  of  old 
philosophers  and  lawgivers,  had  condescended  to  do  the  same 
for  the  bards  of  "  olden  time,"  and  of  his  own  age,  he  would 
not  have  been  so  severe  in  excluding  the  poets  from  his  city, 
.conducting  them,  it  is  true,  with  respect  to  the  limits  of  its 
territory,  and  there  sending  them  on  their  way,  crowned  with 
chaplets  of  flowers,  and  loaded  with  expressions  of  the  highest 
regard.  He  might  have  permitted  them  to  remain ;  but  with 
the  injunction  of  cultivating  ancient  lore,  and  refraining  from 
inventing  false  tales. 

Of  Orpheus  and  his  numerous  school,  enough  has  been  said. 
But  the  tragic  dramatists  alone  could  furnish  us  with  a  long 
list  of  passages  strikingly  illustrating  our  thesis.  "We  will  -se- 
lect a  few  of  these.  The  most  remarkable  of  them  is,  un- 
doubtedly, the  strange  poem  of  "  Prometheus  bound."  Many 
interpretations  of  it  have  been  given.  Which  is  the  surest  ? 
No  one  can  say.  The  old  mythologists  themselves  did  not 
agree ;  and  the  modern  critics  content  themselves  with  an  ab- 
stract of  the  various  old  myths  supposed  to  be  contained  in  it, 
to  which  they  append  their  comments,  often  as  fanciful  as 
the  legends  themselves,  if  not  more  so.  Baron  von  Humboldt 
saw  in  it  merely  a  record  of  Phrenician  colonization.  Others 


GEEEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  395 

saw  in  it  the  embodiment  of  the  first  struggles  between  the 
primitive  Pelasgic  pantheism  and  the  more  recent  Olympian 
system  of  idolatry  represented  by  Zeus.  We  have  already  ob- 
served that  it  might  represent  .the  constant  and  cruel  hardships 
of  the  long  migrations  of  Pelasgians  or  Hellenes  from  India 
to  Greece,  and,  especially,  when  they  reached  the  almost  im- 
passable heights  of  the  Caucasus.  But  the  poem  of  ^Eschylus 
contains  many  details  which  cannot  be  possibly  explained  by  such 
realistic  and  common-place  interpretations.  The  great  tragic 
writer  relates  several  incidents  as  no  other  traditional  narration 
has  reported  them.  Yet  his  version  of  it  is  full  of  in- 
consistencies. It  is  evident  that  he  had  some  ancient  docu- 
ments, perhaps  the  most  ancient  of  all,  and  he  has  inserted 
them  in  his  poem  almost  at  random  ;  without  failing,  however, 
to  infuse  into  them  a  plentiful  admixture  of  his  own  thoughts. 
But  in  many  of  them  there  is  intrinsic  evidence  that  he^ould 
not  have  invented  them,  but  must  have  taken  them  from  some 
ancient  source.  Being  a  pagan  Greek,  he  could  not  understand 
the  myth  ;  and  in  order  to  give  an  exuberant  life  to  his  poem,  he 
has  inserted  in  it  the  notions  polytheism  gave  him  of  Zeus, 
Hephaistos,  Hermes,  etc. ;  and  the  grand  figure  of  Prometheus 
has  suffered  from  it.  The  consequence  is,  that  it  is  impossible 
to  make  a  consistent  tale  of  the  whole  poem,  and  we  have  to 
endeavor  to  find  in  it  what  is  really  ancient,  and  could  not  have 
issued  at  all  from  the  imagination  of  the  poet.  In  the  course  of 
such  an  investigation  we  shall  fall  on  the  most  extraordinary 
and  sublime  traditions,  far  superior  to  any  of  those  preserved 
by  Orpheus,  Pythagoras,  and  Plato.  We  must,  however,  start 
from  the  supposition  that  Christianity  is  true ;  and  that  the 
fall  and  the  then  future  redemption  of  man,  in  spite  of  the 
opposition  of  Satan,  are  two  great  facts  kept  in  the  remem- 
brance of  all  ancient  nations.  Yoltaire  himself  has  acknowl- 
edged it.  •• 


396  GENTILISM. 


II. 


A  very  erudite  and  clever  writer  of  three  most  interesting 
articles  on  the  "  Prometheus  bound,"  in  the  "  Annales  de  Philo- 
sophic Chretienne" — Mr.  C.  Rossignol — places  ^Eschylus  first 
of  the  three  great  Greek  dramatists,  because  he  is  "  more  true  to 
the  old  traditions,  more  severe  in  his  style,  larger  in  his  mind 
and  views,  and  far  more  majestic  in  all  his  conceptions  "  than 
Sophocles,  and  still  more  than  Euripides,  whom  the  critic  "wil- 
lingly gives  up  to  the  wrath  of  Aristophanes  and  of  Plato." 
William  Schlegel  says,  that  "the  other  fictions  of  Greek  tragic 
writers  are  merely  shreds  of  tragedy,  but  the  Prometheus 
bound  of  ^Eschyles  is  Tragedy  itself  in  all  its  primitive  and 
glorious  splendor." 

All  modern  critics  admit  that  ./Eschylus,  in  this  poem,  did 
not  give  merely  the  invention  of  his  own  fancy,  but  embodied 
in  them  old  traditions  handed  down  to  him,  and  preserved  in 
his  time  by  many  authors. 

But  the  question  is,  What  were  those  traditions  ?  And  what 
was  the  true  character  of  Prometheus,  according  to  them  ?  Mr.  C. 
Rossignol,  in  his  second  article,  states  that  "  several  passages  of 
the  poem  "—he  quotes  only  one,  and  that  not  by  any  means 
the  most  striking — "  have  filled  with  stupor  some  men  of  intel- 
lect by  reminding  them  of  Christ,  who  suffered  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  man."  He  does  not  name  them,  and  we  were  before 
totally  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  such  an  interpretation  had  been 
given  to  this  tragedy.  This  hypothesis  he  altogether  rejects, 
because  Prometheus  often  displays  in  the  poem  "  a  deep  pride 
and  a  concentrated  rage"  utterly  opposed  to  the  character  of  the 
Redeemer.  He  then  adduces  several  passages  which  display 
the  contrast  existing  between  Prometheus  and  Christ.  In  his 
opinion  the  bound  "  Titan "  is  Adam  after  his  fall,  and  he 
brings  forward  a  considerable  body  of  proof  in  support  of  it. 


GEEEK-  AND  LATIN  POETS.  397 

We  think,  however,  that  Mr.  Rossignol  has  not  rendered  suf- 
ficient justice  to  the  opinion  he  condemns,  and  that  a  number 
of  remarkable  passages  can  be  quoted  from  the  poem  to  sub- 
stantiate it ;  so  that  after  all  ^Eschylus  may  have  jumbled  to- 
gether several  traditions  in  his  possession  ;  and,  being  a  pagan 
and  not  understanding  them,  he  may  have  unknowingly  given 
to  the  character  of  Prometheus,  features  altogether  inconsistent 
and  antagonistic.  We  are  glad  to  find  that  the  writer  in  the 
"  Annales  de  Philosophic  "  admits  fully  the  double  character' 
of  Zeus  as  existing  in  the  poem  of  ^Eechylus — Zeus  the  Su- 
preme, pater  Deorum  hominumgue^  and  Zeus,  the  son  of  Kro- 
nos,  the  Olympian  husband  of  Juno.  This  naturally  creates 
some  confusion  in  the  myth,  and  the  distinction  ought  to  be 
carefully  kept  in  view.  We  say,  then,  that  the  Olympian  god 
whom  Prometheus  opposed  in  heaven  is  Satan  himself,  the 
enemy  of  the  human  race.  And  on  this  supposition,  based  on 
the  dram#  itself,  we  proceed. 

First,  in  two  remarkable  passages  of  the  poem,  Prometheus 
is  stated  to  know  all  future  things,  and  to  have  been  aware  of 
the  consequences  of  his  opposition  to  Zeus,  when  he  took  pity 
on  the  misfortunes  of  mankind.  This  has  escaped  the  notice 
of  many  commentators  ;  and  Mr.  Rossignol  himself  seems  to 
think  that  the  "  hero "  was  ignorant  of*  his  fate,  and  conse- 
quently cannot  be  the  One  we  love  to  call  the  Redeemer. 

The  first  passage  is  taken  from  verses  101  «.  T.  A,  and  reads 
thus: 

rrdvra  npov^emarafiai        • 
oiteOp&g  ra  jueAAovr',  ovdi  IJLOI  Troraivov 
TTT//Z'  ovdev  jjtjei. 

The  literal  Latin  translation  is : 

"  omnia  prsenovi 

accurate  quae  futura  sunt,  neque  mihi  inopinata 
ulla  calamitas  adveniet." 


398  GENTILISM. 

The  literal  English  translation  given  by  T.  A.  Buckley  is  : 
"  I  know  beforehand  all  futurity  exactly,  and  no  suffering  will 
(have)  come  upon  me  unlocked  for."  These  are  the  very  words 
of  Prometheus  himself.  There  are  here  two  very  distinct  pro- 
positions; the  first  asserts  his  general  foreknowledge  which 
embraces  everything,  which  he  must  have  possessed  in  heaven, 
as  well  as  on  the  rock  on  which  he  was  bound  ;  the  second 
refers  to  the  evils  yet  in  store  for  him.  And,  as  in  the  same 
passage,  a  few  lines  before,  he  calls  himself  a  God,  he  is  cer- 
tainly, in  the  opinion  of  ^Eschylus,  far  above  the  Olympian 
gods,  above  the  son  of  Kronos  himself,  whose  foreknowledge 
is  so  limited  that  he  does  not  know  his  future  fall,  announced 
everywhere  in  the  poem.  Satan,  likewise,  did  not  know  that 
Christ  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  he  would  put  an  end  to 
his  power.  Hence  the  temptation  related  in  the  gospel. 

The  other  passage  is  taken  from  the  verses  265,  «.  r.  A. 


eyw  6e  rav6' 
&K&V  r/paprov,  OVK 
OvTjroig  d'dpjjyuv  avrfy  evpofirjv  novovg. 

The  literal  Latin  reads  : 

4'  ggo  vero  hsec  omnia  non  ignorabam. 
volens,  volens  deliqui,  non  infitiabor  ; 
mortalibus  opitulando  ipse  serumnas  nactus  sum." 

And  the  literal  English  :  "  But  I  knew  all  these  things  ;  wil- 
lingly, willingly  I  erred,  I  will  not  gainsay  it  ;  and  in  doing 
service  to  mortals  I  brought  sufferings  upon  myself." 

The  majority  of  commentators  assign  to  the  word  ijimprov,  an 
interpretation  completely  wrong.  They  make  Prometheus  con- 
fess here  that  he  had  sinned  in  opposing  Zeus  ;  and  in  refusing 
to  repent  of  his  sin  and  become  reconciled  with  the  god,  he 
shows  only  obstinacy  and  rage.  The  nymphs  of  the  chorus  had 
already,  a  few  lines  back,  used  the  word  fmapreg,  and  the  same 


GEEEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  399 

commentators  understood  it  of  sin  likewise,  and  pretend  that 
the  friends  of  the  suffering  hero  exhort  him  to  repent.  But 
the  verb  a^apravw  has  generally  quite  another  meaning  be- 
side sinning.  The  first  and  most  obvious  one  is,  to  make  a  mis- 
take, to  be  wrong  in  judgment,  to  err  in  consequence  of  it,  and 
here  it  is  obviously  the  meaning  of  the  poet.  The  nymphs  of 
the  chorus  had  used  the  word  jjfiapreg,  "  thou  hast  been  wrong 
or  foolish,"  as  we  say  colloquially  ;  and  Prometheus  applies  the 
same  word  to  himselr  because  it  had  been  used  by  the  nymphs, 
his  friends :  "  Yes,"  he  says,  "  I  have  been  foolish  enough  for 
my  own  interest  to  oppose  Zeus  ;  but  I  did  it  willingly, 
although  I  knew  that  my  pity  for  mankind  would  bring  these 
sufferings  on  me." 

It  is  true  that,  directly  after,  Prometheus  adds,  "  Yet,  not  at 
all  did  I  imagine  that,  in  such  a  punishment  as  this,  I  was  to 
wither  away  upon  lofty  rocks,  and  to  find  myself  bound  to  this 
desolate,  solitary  crag."  This  is  not  certainly  in  accordance  with 
the  previous  assertion  that  "  all  futurity  "  was  open  to  the  eye  of 
the  God.  ^Eschylus  thought,  probably,  that  to  make  any  god  so 
precise  in  his  foreknowledge,  as  that  such  inferior  details  as  a 
"  solitary  crag  "  shorud  be  unveiled  to  him  would  be  unworthy 
of  Deity.  He  had  not  found  this  certainly  in  the  traditions  he 
possessed,  and  he  merely  contradicts  what  he  had  previously 
asserted. 

The  next  passage  we  shall  quote,  commences  from  the  235th 
line.  We  will  not  give  it  in  Greek,  as  its  meaning  is  not,  as  far 
as  we  know,  disputed.  It  reads :  "  These  schemes "  of  Zeus, 
"  no  one  opposed  except  myself.  But  I  dared :  I  ransomed  mor- 
tals from  being  utterly  destroyed,  and  going  down  to  Hades," 
namely,  to  hell.  The  two  previous  passages  are  in  these  few 
phrases  explained  thoroughly,  so  that  no  critic  can  put  their 
true  meaning  in  doubt.  They  are  the  words  of  the  Redeemer. 

Another  argument  in  support  of  the  opinion  of  those  who 

see  in  Prometheus  an  image  or  type  of  the  Saviour,  is  derived 

27 


400  GEOTILISM. 

from  the  character  of  lo  in  the  poem.  Mr.  Rossignol  himself 
sees  in  her  the  plain  features  of  Eve  after  her  sin,  and  it  is 
proper  to  refer  to  his  ideas  on  the  subject  in  order  to  under- 
stand the  character  and  office  of  the  hero  of  the  drama.  Mr. 
A.  Nicholas,  also,  in  his  "  Etudes  Philosophiques  sur  le  Chris- 
tianisme,"  sees  in  lo  the  first  mother  of  mankind ;  as,  in  Pro- 
metheus, he  acknowledges  Adam  or  the  human  race. 

"  lo,"  says  Mr.  Rossignol,  "  bears  all  the  characteristics  of  the 
unfortunate  Eve  ;  like  her  prototype,  sfte  is  under  a  curse, 
miserable,  a  wanderer,  followed  by  the  heavenly  wrath  from 
country  to  country ;  the  earth  is  bathed  by  her  tears,  and  re- 
echoes to  her  groans.  But  the  picture  is  yet  more  true  when  it 
embraces  the  fate  of  all  women  before  the  coming  of  the  Mes- 
siah. They  are  happy  and  respected  nowhere ;  their  dignity  is 
misunderstood,  outraged  .  .  .  ."  Mr.  Nicholas  speaks  almost  in 
the  same  terms. 

But  what  does  lo  herself,  in  the  poem,  expect  from  Prome- 
theus ?  what  does  she  see  in  him  ?  what  does  she  think  of  him  ? 
Had  the  hero  been  merely  Adam  —  although  we  do  not  deny 
that  the  poem  bears  also  this  interpretation  in  many  passages 
— how  different  would  have  been  the  mee^bg  of  the  two  for- 
lorn sufferers ! 

"  lo  .  .  .  .  Clearly  define  to  me  what  remedy  there  is  for  my 
disease ;  speak,  if  at  all  thou  knowest ;  speak,  and  tell  it  to  the 
wretched  roaming  damsel. 

"  Prom.  I  will  tell  thee  clearly  everything  which  thou  de- 
sirest  to  learn  ....  in  plain  language,  as  it  is  right  to  open  the 
lips  is  friends.  Thou  seest  him  who  bestowed  fire  on  mortals, 
Prometheus. 

"  lo.  O,  thou  that  didst  confer  such  a  benefit  on  mankind, 
wretched  Prometheus,  tell  me  for  what  offence  thou  art  under- 
going such  a  terrible  penance  ? 

"  Prom.  I  have  just  ceased  lamenting  my  own  pangs. 

"  lo.  Say  who  it  was  that  bound  thee  fast  in  this  cleft  ? 


GREEK  AND  LATIN  POETS.  401 

"  Prom.  The  decree  of  Zeus,  but  the  hand  of  Hephaistos. 

"  lo.  And  for  what  offences  art  thou  paying  the  penalty  ? 

"  Prom.  Thus  much  alone  is  all  that  I  can  clearly  explain  to 
thee." 

Was  the  document  on  which  ^Eschylus  based  his  tragedy 
reticent  on  the  answer  to  such  an  important  question  ?  Or, 
having  the  answer  plain  before  his  eyes,  and  being  unable  to 
understand  its  import,  did  he  fall  back,  as  was  usual  among 
Egyptians  and  Greeks",  on  the  necessity  of  keeping  secret  the 
mysteries  ?  We  are  inclined  to  accef>t  this  last  interpretation. 
Thus  ^Eschylus  did  not  dare  to  write :  "  For  tky  offences  I  am 
paying  the  penalty  !  " 

in. 

But  we  must  not  suppose  that  the  other  tragedies  of  the 
great  Eleusinian  poet  contain  nothing  of  a  similar  import. 
Among  those  which  have  survived  the  injuries  of  time,  there  is 
only  one  entire  "  trilogy,"  embracing  the  Agamemnon,  the 
Coephori,  and  the  Eumenides.  It  is  the  story  of  Orestes, 
from  the  original  cause  of  his  matricide,  to  his  expiation.  In 
the  opinion  of  many  modern  critics,  it  is  the  greatest  tragic 
composition  in  existence  ;  and  as  it  is  complete,  it  can  give  us, 
they  say,  a  more  exact  idea  of  the  Greek  stage  than  any  other 
poem  we  possess.  Our  subject,  however,  is  not  concerned 
with  its  artistic  merits.  It  is  the  echoes  of  tradition  we  must 
endeavor  to  detect  in  it.  It  is,  in  fact,  another  exposition  of 
moral  truth,  such  as  is  contained  in  the  book  of  Job  and  in  the 
prophecies  of  Ezecfeiel.  And  as,  confessedly,  the  Hebrew 
poems  of  both  inspired  writers  are  among  the  grandest  con- 
ceptions of  the  Old  Testament,  it  is  not  a  little  striking  to  find 
some  resemblance  to  them  in  a  Greek  writer  only  a  little  older 
than  Pericles.  ^Eschylus,  in  fact,  lived  to  see  the  great  man 
who  gave  his  name  to  the  golden  age  of  Greek  literature.  But 


402  GENTILISM. 

lie  sternly  opposed  his  innovations  in  religion,  politics,  and 
even  art.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  E.  H.  Plumptre  :  "  He  found 
on  his  return  (from  Sicily)  new  men,  new  measures,  a  new 

philosophy,  a  new  taste  'in  poetry Men  who  could  claim 

no  connection  with  Eupatrid  descent  were  pressing  forward  to 
the  foremost  place  of  power.  The  institutions  which  were 
held  most  sacred  as  the  safeguard  of  Athenian  religion  were 
criticised  and  attacked.  The  court  of  Areiopagos,  which  had 
exercised  an  awful  and  undefined  authority  in  all  matters  con- 
nected, directly  or  indirdstly,  with  the  religious  life  of  the 
State,  was  covertly  attacked  under  the  plea  of  reforming  its  ad- 
ministration. Oracles  and  divinations  no  longer  commanded 
men's  reverence  and  trust.  There  were  whispers  that  men 
were  beginning  to  say  that  there  was  no  God ;  or  that  the  old 
name  of  Zeus  was  to  pass  away  before  those  of  a  Supreme 
Intelligence,  or  a  measureless  vortex.  And  the  leader  of  the 
movement,  in  all  its  bearings  upon  religion,  politics,  art, 
and  thought,  was  one  who  inherited  the  curse  of  the  Alcmae- 
onidae,  against  whom  the  aristocratic  party  had  revived  the 
memory  of  that  curse,  who  had  been  suspected  himself  of 
sacrilege  and  scepticism  on  account  of  his  connection  with 
Anaxagoras  "  (namely,  Pericles). 

These  were  the  feelings  which  prompted  JEschylus  to  write 
his  celebrated  trilogy.  In  it,  consequently,  we  have  his  in- 
most thoughts  on  all  those  great  subjects ;  and  as  he  wrote  it 
only  three  years  before  his  death,  when  he  was  already  sixty, 
\ve  find  in  it  the  most  mature  reflections  of  this  great  mind 
on  human  life,  the  soul,  moral  evil,  its  punishment,  and  pos- 
sible expiation.  It  does  not  contain,  consequently,  like  the 
Prometheus  bound,  traditions  of  primitive  history,  but  the 
thoughts  of  antiquity  on  all  those  most  interesting  topics ;  and 
our  task  will,  later  on,  consist  in  discovering,  as  far  as  possible, 
how  ^Eschylus  found  them ;  if  they  were  the  product  of  his 
own  imagination,  or  if  they  had  not  been  proclaimed  long 


GREEK    A1STD    LATIN    POETS.  403 

before,  so  that  he  might  have  obtained  a  knowledge  of 
them. 

The  great  tragic  poet  was,  undoubtedly,  a  writer  eminently 
conservative  of  old  traditions.  He  was  certainly  inclined  towards 
whatever  was  truly  ancient.  He  preferred  the  old  Chtonian  gods, 
with  their  dim  light  of  Hades'  sun,  to  the  new  divinities  of  this 
sublunary  world  of  earthly  light ;  and  he  shows  it  both  in  his 
Prometheus  and  in  this  Oresteian  trilogy.  He  stood  firm  for 
the  old  Areiopagos  against  the  new  reformers  of  Justice.  He 
leaned  even  towards  the  harsh  Erinnyes,  and  would  not  have 
their  worship  abolished  in  his  city  of  Athens.  Yet  he  pro- 
tested loudly,  in  this  very  last  pcem,  against  the  terrible  and 
extreme  doctrines  that  had  prevailed  for  long  ages  before  him 
in  Greece ;  and  he  announced  the  necessity  of  employing  the 
good  offices  of  the  new  gods — Apollo  and  Athene  chiefly — for 
a  reform  of  the  former  unnatural  severity. 

AVhat  had  been  until  his  time  the  doctrine  of  Greece  on  sin 
and  its  expiation,  on  the  curse  uttered  against  races  and  families, 
on  the  most  frequent  causes  of  the  wrath  of  Zeus,  and  the  in- 
variable and  pitiless  character  of  the  punishment  inflicted  on 
those  who  incurred  the  wrath  of  the  gods?  It  had  carried 
harshness  to  absurdity ;  and  yet  it  was  only  a  too  sweeping  con- 
clusion drawn  'from  true  and  heavenly-revealed  premises.  Any 
great  crime — murder,  adultery,  the  violation  of  hospitality  by 
lust  or  other  outrage,  parricide  chiefly,  and  the  murder  of  in- 
fants, as  in  the  case  of  Atreus — were  thought  to  be  absolutely 
irreparable  crimes,  which  no  amount  of  repentance  and  expia- 
tion could  wash  away  from  the  soul  or  the  body.  Xay,  more, 
the  guilt  passed  directly  to  the  posterity  of  the  culprit,  until 
the  whole  race  was  finally  destroyed.  Then  only  were  the 
Furies  satisfied.  (Edipus  was  not  guilty  of  wilful  incest  and 
parricide  ;  yet  not  only  was  he  awfully  punished,  but  his  chil- 
dren perished  by  their  own  hands  as  an  atonement  for  the 
crime  of  their  father.  Agamemnon  was  killed  by  his  own 


404  GENTILISM. 

wife  on  account  of  the  atrocious  misdeed  of  Atreus,  bis  father ; 
and  so  of  many  others.  As  Rev.  "W.  Lucas  Collins  expresses 
it  in  his  "^Eschylus "  (Ancient  Classics  for  General,  Readers), 
page  133  :  "We  are  so  much  accustomed  to  regard  each  man 
as  responsible  for  his  own  sins,  and  these  only,  that  we  are  in- 
clined to  forget  how  much  is  to  be  said  for  a  different  view — • 
to  forget  that  children  bear  the  iniquity  of  their  parents.  Now 
here  is  a  nation — the  Hellenic — full  of  the  joy  of  life,  and  full 
also  of  careful  and  wondering  reflection — just  like  a  child,  in 
fact,  in  both ;  and  this  nation  gives  us  ....  as  its  experience, 
that  a  man  is  not  entirely  responsible  for  his  own  deeds,  but  is 
impelled  by  temptation,  which  comes  on  him  in  punishment 
of  his  father's  crimes.  The  moral  unit,  so  to  speak,  is  a  house, 
not  a  man.  A  family  sins,  and  a  family  is  punished.  The 
gods,  then,  are  just,  though  their  course  of  action  presses 
harshly  on  the  individual." 

This  is  an  exact  exposition  of  the  case,  except  that  the 
writer  does  not  say  enough,  since  he  does  not  state  that,  in 
many  instances,  the  crime  was  thought  by  the  Hellenes  to  be 
incapable  of  expiation,  even  did  the  posterity  of  the  guilty 
embrace  a  virtuous  life.  In  this,  evidently,  the  old  Greek 
religion  erred  by  excess. 

But  how  were  the  Hellenes  induced  to  adopt  such  extreme 
doctrines  ?  No  reason  can  be  found  for  it,  unless  we  go  back 
to  the  origin  of  mankind,  and  hear  the  voice  of  heaven  crying 
out  to  the  sinful  father  of  the  human  race,  "  Quia  audisti  vocem 
uxoris  tuse,  et  comedisti  de  ligno  ex  quo  prseceperam  tibi  ne  corne- 
deres,  maledicta  terra  in  opere  tuo,  etc."  They  had  heard  from 
tradition  that  the  sin  of  the  first  man  had  brought  a  curse  on 
the  earth  itself,  and  on  his  posterity,  and  they  concluded  that 
the  sin  of  a  father  passed  to  his  children ;  and  all  other  nations 
of  antiquity  drew  the  same  conclusion.  But  they  went  further. 
They  first  attributed  the  same  frightful  effects  to  sins  of  igno- 
rance, as  we  call  them ;  taking  into  account  only  the  material 


GREEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  405 

act,  and  supposing  the  guilt,  when  in  fact  there  could  be  no 
responsibility.  And,  further,  as  they  had  not  heard  of  a  Re- 
deemer, and  of  the  treasures  of  mercy  opened  through  Him 
for  the  repentant  sinner,  they  supposed  that  the  destruction  of 
the  whole  race  or  family  could  alone  expiate  the  crime.  It 
was  chiefly  murder  which  took  such  awful  proportions,  and 
brought  such  frightful  consequences ;  because  they  had  heard 
probably  from  the  traditions  of  their  ancestors  that  the  first 
murderer  had  received  for  his  sentence  an  absolute  curse  with- 
out any  qualification,  "  Maledictus  eris  super  terrain  quae  .... 
suscepit  sanguinem  fratris  tui  de  manu  tua."  They  had  more 
probably  yet  heard  that  the  second  father  of  mankind,  directly 
after  the  deluge,  of  which  they  certainly  knew,  had  uttered 
these  awful  words  without  a  word  of  attenuation  and  explana- 
tion :  "  Quicumque  effuderit  humanum  sanguinem,  fundetur 
sanguis  illius  ;  ad  imaginem  quippe  Dei  factus  est  homo."  "We 
say  that  all  this  had  probably  come  to  the  knowledge  of  the 
Hellenes,  because  if  they  knew  nothing  of  it,  the  fixedness  of 
their  belief  in  the  extreme  punishment  due  to  murder,  even 
of  material  murder,  is  inexplicable. 

But  the  Greek  error  went  yet  farther.  According  to  it,  God 
often  punished  men  and  races  of  men  when  there  had  been 
no  crime  committed,  when  only  an  uninterrupted  prosperity 
offended  Him,  and  excited  His  wrath.  He  was  a  jealous  God, 
not  in  the  sense  of  the  Old  Testament,  jealous  of  His  honor, 
and  chastising  those  who  transferred  to  false  gods  the  worship 
due  only  to  Himself ;  but  in  the  sense  that  man  is  envious  of 
the  prosperity  of  his  neighbor.  This  strange  hallucination, 
transferring  to  the  Almighty  the  low  passions  of  His  creatures, 
was  universal,  not  only  among  the  Greeks,  but  likewise  among 
other  ancient  nations,  and  especially  among  the  Egyptians. 
Herodotus  relates  several  strange  stories  based  on  this  error. 
That  of  Polycrates  of  Sa'mos  is  known  to  everybody.  As  ho 
had  never  met  with  any  reverse  of  fortune,  with  even  any  dis- 


406  GENTILISM. 

appointment  during  his  whole  life,  Amasis  of  Egypt  wrote  to 
him :  "Your  good  fortune  frightens  me;  if  you  value  my 
friendship,  deprive  yourself  of  something  dear  to  you,  which 
may  appease  the  anger  of  a  jealous  God."  And  he  threw  into 
the  sea  a  ring  of  great  value,  to  which  he  was  much  attached ; 
but  the  day  after,  a  fish  was  brought  to  him  in  which  the  ring 
was  found ;  and  Amasis  hearing  of  it,  would  not  have  any 
more  intercourse  with  the  too  fortunate  Polycrates.  Shortly 
after,  therefore,  he  was  betrayed  into  the  hands  of  a  Persian 
satrap,  his  enemy,  who  put  him  to  death  with  most  exquisite 
tortures.  Other  examples  of  the  same  kind,  true  or  false,  can 
be  read  in  the  work  of  the  Father  of  History.  At  least  they 
give  us  an  idea  of  what  the  Greeks  thought  of  God.  ^Eschylus 
himself  has  expressed  it  in  his  "  Agamemnon,"  (v.  Y27) : 

"  There  lives  an  old  law,  framed  in  ancient  days 
In  memories  of  men,  that  high  estate, 
Full-grown,  brings  forth  its  young,  nor  childless  dies  ; 

But  that  from  good  success 
Springs  to  the  race  a  woe  unsatiable." 

The  consequence  of  all  these  errors  of  the  Greeks  is  well 
expressed  by  Mr.  Plumptre,  as  follows  (Life  of  ^Eschylus, 
page  72) :  "  Was  there  a  righteous  government  of  the  uni- 
verse ?  Was  the  ruler  of  gods  and  men  capricious  like  the 
kings  of  earth  ?  Was  he  enslaved  by  some  higher  law  of  des- 
tiny which  moved  on  its  way  in  a  darkness  that  none  could 
penetrate,  and  to  which  even  He  was  subject  ?  It  has  often 
been  said  that  this  was  the  theory  of  the  universe  which 
uEschylus  embraced  ;  that  the  underlying  thought  in  all  Greek 
tragedy,  is  that  of  a  curse  cleaving  causelessly  to  a  given  race, 
generation  after  generation,  against  which  man  struggles  vainly, 
each  effort  to  escape  only  riveting  the  chains  mo  e  firmly.  If 
any  explanation  is  at  hand  of  the  dark  mystery  of  evil,  it 
is  that  prosperity,  as  such,  makes  mefl  obnoxious  to  the  jealous 
wrath  of  the  gods  or  of  their  Kuler. 


GKEEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  407 

"  It  would  be  far  truer,  I  believe,  to  say  that  this  is  precisely 
the  theory  of  the  divine  government  which  ^Eschylus  lived  to  de- 
nounce and  protest  against Against  such  a  theory  the 

heart  of  JEschylus  revolted.  He  craved  for  a  theodikcea,  arid 
came  forward  in  the  spirit,  one  might  almost  say,  of  an  Atha- 
nasius  contra  mundum,  to  attack  the  prevailing  creed." 


IY. 


And  to  come  to  the  various  details  of  error  enunciated  above, 
we  begin  by  this  last.  ^Eschylus  did  not,  however,  accept  this 
error ;  which  was  altogether  derogatory  to  the  divine  character, 
and  is  unsupported  by  any  primitive  revelation  even  misunder- 
stood and  misrepresented.  For  immediately  after  the  lines  we 
quoted  from  the  tragedy  of  Agamemnon,  we  read  the  follow- 
ing protest : 

"  But  I,  apart  from  all, 

Hold  this  my  creed,  alone  : 
For,  impious  act  it  is  that  offspring  breeds 

Like  to  their  parent  stock  ; 

For  still  in  every  house 
That  loves  the  right,  their  fate  for  evermore 

Hath  issue  good  and  fair." 

"  If  prosperity  sesmsd  to  be  followed  by  disaster,  it  was,  in 
the  thought  of  JEschylus,  because  men  yielded  to  the  tempta- 
tions which  it  brought  with  it,  and  became  wanton,  haughty, 
and  reckless.  The  sequence  of  evil  might  always  be  traced  to 
the  fountain-head  of  some  sin  which  might  have  been*  avoid- 
ed, but  which,  once  committed,  went  on  with  accelerating 
force  ....  The  woes  of  Atreus'  line,  the  curse  that  rested  on 
the  house  of  (Edipus,  the  misery  of  Troy,  are  all  referred  to 
a  root-sin  which  remained  unrepented  of  and  unatoned  for." 

But  in  the  second  place  the  assertion  that  the  guilt  of  every 


408  GENTILISM. 

sin  can  be  washed  away  by  expiation,  is  repeatedly  insisted 
upon  in  the  Oresteian  trilogy,  and  thus  ^Eschylus  rejects  the 
harsh  belief  of  the  heroic  age.  Orestes  exclaims  (Eum.,  v.  423) : 

"  I  am  not  now  defiled ;  no  curse  alides 
Upon  the  hand  that  on  thy  (Athene's)  statue  rests ; 
And  I  will  give  thee  proof  full  strong  of  this. 
The  law  is  fixed  the  murderer  should  be  dumb, 
Till  at  the  hand  of  one  who  frees  from  blood, 
The  purple  stream  from  yeanling  swine  run  o'er  him. 
Long  since,  at  other  houses,  these  dread  rites 
We  have  gone  through,  slain  victims,  flowing  streams ; 
This  care  then  I  can  speak  of  now  as  gone." 

The  chorus  in  Agamemnon  (verse  1541),  having  asserted 
that  "  the  doer  bears  his  deed,"  that  "  this  is  heaven's  decree," 
and  consequently  that  "  the  brood  of  curses  cannot  be  driven 
from  the  kingly  house,"  because  "  the  house  to  Ate  cleaves," 
Clyternnestra  answers  forcibly,  and  as  a  truth  which  must  be 
now  recognized,  that,  Agamemnon  having  suffered  •  for  the 
crime  of  his  father,  "her  house  is  now  free  from  fratricidal 
hate." 

The  whole  trilogy  attests  the  value  of  expiation  to  wash 
away  even  the  crime  of  matricide.  In  the  last  drama  (Eum., 
v.  227),  Orestes,  addressing  Athene,  says  pointedly : 

"  Do  thou  receive  me  graciously, 
Sin-stained  though  I  have  been  ;  no  guilt  of  blood 
Is  on  my  soul,  nor  is  my  hand  unclean." 

He  repeats  it  in  answer  to  the  Furies  themselves  (verse  265). 
But  w«  should  have  to  quote  almost  the  whole  play,  if  we  were 
to  record  all  the  passages  of  a  similar  tendency. 

Indeed,  more  than  sixty  years  before  the  birth  of  JEschylus, 
Epimenides,  the  prophet  of  Crete,  had  been  called  by  the  Athe- 
nians to  purify  their  city  afflicted  by  the  plague  and  discord. 
The  Athenians,  it  seems,  already  growing  more  polished,  un- 


GREEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  409 

derstood  that  there  must  be  under  a  merciful  God  means  of 
reconciliation  with  Heaven.  The  old  harsh  belief  appeared  to 
be  thus  giving  way  to  a  more  just  conception  of  the  Deity. 

But  did  the  theory  of  expiation  advocated  by  ^Eschylus  re- 
quire "a  contrite  heart,"  what  we  call  true  sorrow  for  sin?  In 
the  case  of  Orestes,  this  "  sorrow  "  did  not  exist,  since  he  always 
asserted  that  he  had  committed  no  sin  in  killing  his  mother. 
But  his  case  was  peculiar.  He  rested  his  defence  on  the  plea 
that  he  had  acted  on  the  positive  command  of  "  Apollo  and  the 
Oracle."  He  was,  therefore,  not  only  justified  in  doing  "  the 
deed,"  but  he  would  have  been  guilty  of  disobedience  to  a 
"  divine  command,"  had  he  refused.  His  expiation  was  conse- 
quently merely  an  exterior  one,  such  as  we  are  apt  to  think 
expiation  always  was  among  the  Greeks.  Blood  shed  by  his 
hand  required  that  the  blood  of  victims  should  wash  it  away. 

Yet  the  general  opinion  on  the  subject,  just  mentioned,  is 
not  correct.  (Edipus,  certainly,  to  judge  by  the  Greek  drama, 
was  deeply  afflicted  for  his  double  crime,  although  done  in  igno- 
rance. And  many  other  similar  instances  will  be  recollected 
by  the  reader.  No  one  can  imagine  that  the  Hellenes  could 
have  been  so  dead  to  every  sting  of  conscience  as  not  to  know 
that  the  first  condition  of  reconciliation  with  God  required  "  a 
contrite  heart,"  as  Scripture  says.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Plunip- 
tre :  "  It  is  enough  to  note  the  fact  that  in  the  theology  of 
^Eschylus,  as  in  the  ritual  which  the  Cretan  prophet  had  intro- 
duced, and  which  was  propagated  by  the  Orphic  and  other 
mystic  brotherhoods,  the  sufferer  who  groans  under  the  burden 
of  guilt  needs,  over  and  above  the  discipline  of  buffering  and  a 
life  ruled  by  law,  purification  and  atonement ;  that  the  purifica- 
tion must  be  wrought  by  blood  poured  or  sprinkled  on  the  man 
who  sought  it ;  that  he  needs  the  mediation  of  another  in  order 
that  the  purification  may  be  accomplished ;  that  to  render  this 
office  is  the  greatest  kindness  which  a  friend  can  show  to  a 
friend,  or  host  to  suppliant  -guest ;  that  when  this  is  done,  he 


410  GENTILISM. 

may  once  more  draw  near,  '  with  contrite  heart,'  '  harmless  and 
pure,'  to  the  temples  of  the  gods." 

There  remains,  finally,  on  this  subject,  to  consider  the  opin- 
ion of  the  Hellenes  on  the  transmission  of  guilt  from  father  to 
son ;  we  have  said  that  there  was  exaggeration  in  this  belief, 
as  it  made  it  inevitable,  so  that  a  really  virtuous  posterity  had 
to  suffer  on  account  of  a  guilty  ancestor.  ^Eschylus,  certainly, 
in  several  passages  of  the  trilogy,  places  the  responsibility  of 
crime  on  "  the  doer,"  and  on  no  other.  "  Doer  must  suffer  " 
is  a  pretty  frequent  axiom  with  him.  In  this  ^Eschylus  shared 
in  the  doctrine  of  Ezechiel  (xviii.  2,  4,  etc.)  The  discussion  of 
this  most  obscure  and  difficult  doctrine  of  the  divine  govern- 
ment of  the  universe  does  not  enter  into  the  plan  of  this  work. 
But  we  are  naturally  brought,  by  the  mere  mention  we  make 
of  it,  to  consider  how  the  Greek  poet  came  to  adopt,  with  such 
firmness  of  opinion,  moral  decisions  of  such  high  import,  and 
so  different  from  the  previous  belief  of  his  countrymen. 

We  have  seen  how  probably  the  Hellenes  were  induced  to 
consider  great  crimes,  such  as  murder,  as  inexpiable.  The 
words  of  God  to  Adam,  to  Cain,  to  Noah,  were  emphatic  and 
absolute,  and  did  not  appear  to  admit  of  any  mitigation.  The 
ancestors  of  the  Pelasgians  and  Greeks  must  have  heard  some- 
thing at  least  of  the  words  of  Noah  speaking  in  the  name  of 
God,  since  they  knew  so  well  the  traditions  of  the  flood.  Their 
extraordinary  opinion  is  naturally  explained  by  such  tradition, 
and  becomes  otherwise  almost  inexplicable.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  the  belief  in  the  transmission  of  guilt  from  father  to 
son,  which  the  Hellenes  and  other  nations  must  have  derived 
from  the  doctrine  of  an  original  sin  on  the  part  of  the  parents 
of  the  human  race,  or  every  conjecture  is  at  fault. 

But  the  Hebrew  people,  long  before  .zEschylus,  had  received 
a  more  clear,  precise,  and  detailed  revelation  through  Moses 
and  the  prophets,  which  did  away  with  many  difficulties  in- 
Yolved  in  the  axiomatic  character  of  the  first.  Moses,  trans- 


GREEK    AXD    LATIN    POETS.  411 

mitting  to  the  people  of  Israel  the  law  of  God,  had  stated  with 
precision  the  various  cases  of  homicide,  and  assigned  the  pen- 
alty for  each  case.  Involuntary  homicide  required  no  expia- 
tion whatever,  but  cities  of  refuge  were  appointed  for  those 
who  had  been  unhappy  enough  to  kill  another  unwillingly. 
Sins  of  ignorance  required  an  expiation,  as  "  Leviticus "  testi- 
fies. The  transmission  of  guilt  from  father  to  son  remained 
always  clear  and  undeniable  with  respect  to  the  first  offence  of 
the  father  of  our  race  ;  but  with  respect  to  subsequent  individ- 
ual cases,  other  than  that  of  Adam,  the  utterances  appeared  to 
be  various,  because  the  cases,  admitting  such  transmission  or 
not,  were  various  likewise.  On  this  subject,  the  opinions  of 
the  long-subsequent  Fathers  of  the  Church,  chiefly  comment- 
ing on  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Ezechiel,  may  be  consulted 
with  profit  in  the  works  of  more  modern  exegetists  of  ap- 
proved capacity.  But  the  question  is,  Could  ^Eschylus  have 
been  induced  to  adopt  milder  solutions  of  those  great  prob- 
lems by  the  knowledge  communicated  to  him,  by  means  un- 
known to  us,  of  the  more  precise  explanation  of  the  divine 
law  contained  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  ?  And  what  might 
have  been  those  means  ? 

It  is  certain  that  his  emphatic  declarations  in  the  Oresteian 
trilogy  bear  often  a  striking  analogy  with  many  passages  of 
the  Old  Testament.  Mr.  Plumptre,  in  his  "  Life  of  ^Eschylus," 
does  not  undertake  to  decide  the  question  absolutely.  He 
says :  "  Whether  the  phenomenon  be  one  of  parallelism  in 
religious  feeling  which  often  meets  us  in  races  that  have  had 
no  contact  with  each  other,  or  be  due  to  the  influence  of  Sem- 
itic thought  passing  from  Syria  to  the  '  Isles  of  Chittim,'  and 
so  through  Epimenides  to  Greece,  we  need  not  now  discuss." 
Yet  he  later  admits  that  the  belief  of  JEschylus  on  these  mo- 
mentous questions  is  "every  way  analogous  to  that  which  is 
dominant  in  the  Old  Testament."  We  need  no  more  than  this 
admission. 


412  GENTILISJI. 


Y. 


We  have  not,  however,  yet  exhausted  the  subject.  The 
most  important,  perhaps,  as  well  as  the  most  striking  part  of  it, 
remains  to  be  developed.  We  shall  endeavor  to  do  this  with 
all  the  brevity  possible.  The  doctrine  of  the  great  Greek 
poet,  in  his  Oresteian  trilogy,  contains  axioms  —  we  may  call 
them  so  —  on  the  divine  government  of  the  world,  which  are 
found  nowhere  else  in  Hellenic  philosophy  and  poetry,  and 
which  raise  it  to  an  elevation  approaching  that  of  some  of  the 
most  solemn  utterances  of  Holy  Scripture.  The  great  ques- 
tions, Why  is  there  evil  in  the  world?  and  why  does  God  per- 
mit evil  at  all?  are,  no  doubt,  the  most  difficult  of  ethical 
theology.  ^Eschylus  attempts  to  solve  them,  and  he  does  it  as 
no  other  Greek  writer  ever  did. 

First;  he  admits  the  great  law  of  suffering  for  all : 

"  Save  the  Gods, 
Who  free  from  suffering  lives  out  all  his  life  ? " — (Agam.,  536.) 

There  is,  especially,  in  the  same  play,  beginning  verse  346, 
a  •  full  description  by  the  Chorus,  beginning,  "  O  Zeus,  our 
King  ! "  of  all  the  woes  endured  by  the  Trojans,  as  well  as  by 
the  Greeks  during  the  war,  so  generalized,  although  full  of 
details,  so  heart-rending  and  bitter,  that  it  looks  as  an  effusion 
of  Pascal  when  speaking  of  the  miseries  of  our  humanity. 
The  following  short  quotation  will  give  the  reader  some  idea 
of  it.  After  having  described  the  woes  ,of  Ilion,  the  poet  turns 
to  the  Hellenes : 

"  From  Hellas'  ancient  shore 
A  sore  distress  that  causeth  pain  of  heart 

Is  seen  in  every  house. 
Yea,  many  things  there  are  that  touch  the  quick : 

For  those  whom  each  did  send 

He  knoweth  ;  but,  instead 


GREEK   A:XD    LATES    POETS.  413 

Of  living  men,  there  comes  to  each  man's  home 

Funereal  urns  alone, 

And  ashes  of  the  dead. 
For  Ares,  trafficking  for  golden  coin 

The  lifeless  shapes  of  men,  . 
And  in  the  rush  of  battle  holding  scales, 

Sends  now  from  Ilion, 

Dust  from  the  funereal  pyre." 

But  how  does  the  poet  look  on  this  universal  spectacle  of 
gloom  ?  Is  Zeus  blind  ?  And  does  he  afflict  mortals  without 
any  other  object  than  inflicting  suffering  ?  ^Eschylus  could 
not,  if  he  would,  think  thus  of  Him  whom  he  acknowledges 
in  the  same  drama  as  the  Supreme,  and,  we  may  say,  only 
God  (v.  158) : 

"  O  Zeus — whatever  He  be, 

If  that  Name  please  Him  well, 

By  that  on  Him  I  call : 
Weighing  all  other  name?,  I  fail  to  guess 
Aught  else  but  Zeus,  if  I  would  cast  aside 

Clearly,  in  very  deed, 
From  off  my  soul  this  weight  of  vaguest  care." 

Why  is  it  that  this  God,  on  Iccount  of  whose  Name  "  every- 
one ought  to  cast  aside  the  weight  of  care,"  has  established  all 
over  the  world  this  law  of  universal  suffering  ?  The  answer  of 
^Eschylus  is  plain,  unmistakable.  In  many  cases,  by  "  suffer- 
ing "  the  sins  of  many  men  are  punished,  and  not  only  in  this 
life,  but  likewise  hereafter  ;  for,  speaking  of  Hades,  he  says  : 

"  There,  as  men  relate,  a  second  Zeus 
Judges  men's  evil  deeds,  and  to  the  dead 
Assigns  their  last  great  penalties." — (Suppl.  226.) 

And  (in  Eumen.,  v.  168)  Erinnys  declares  of  the  sinner  : 

"  Though  'neath  the  earth  he  flee,  he  is  not  freed, 
For  he,  blood-stained,  shall  find  upon  his  head 
Another  after  me, 
Destroyer  foul  and  dread." 


414  GENTILISM. 

Again  (v.  325) : 

"  Nor  shall  death  set  him  free." 

This  is  but  a  specimen  of  many  other  passages  we  might 
have  quoted.  But  there  are  cases  when  we,  at  least,  cannot 
perceive  that  any  crime  has  been  committed  worthy  of  those 
"  great  penalties,"  and  yet  they  are  inflicted.  The  poet  sup- 
poses, even,  that  sometimes  man  may  suffer  in  this  life  without 
having  really  deserved  it.  How  is  this  ?  Can  we  justify  the 
government  of  Zeus  ?  His  answer  partially  unfolds  a  doctrine 
often  repeated  in  the  trilogy,  chiefly  in  "Agamemnon,"  and 
which  sheds  a  halo  of  almost  Christian  light  around  the  enigma. 
Then,  says  ^Eschylus,  Tradrniara  become  \iaQi\\iara\  suffering 
brings  knowledge,  wisdom,  and,  consequently,  gain  : 

"  Zeus  who  leadeth  men  in  wisdom's  way, 
And  fixeth  fast  the  law, 
Wisdom  by  pain  to  gain." — (V.  170.) 

Again  (v.  241) : 

"  Justice  turns  the  scale 
For  those  to  whom  Through  pain 
At  last  comes  wisdom's  gain." 

And  in  "  Eum."  (v.  491)  : 

"  There  are  with  whom  it  is  well 
That  awe  should  still  abide, 
As  watchmen  o'er  their  souls  ; 
Calm  wisdom,  gained  by  sorrow,  profits  much." 

Thus,  in  ^Eschylus,  we  find  the  recognition  of  a  moral  dis- 
cipline by  which  men 

"  May  rise  on  stepping-stones 
Of  their  dead  selves  to  higher  things/' 

This  last  reflection  we  find  in  Mr.  Plumptre's  "  Life  of 


GEEEK    AND    LATENT    POETS.  415 

./Eschylus,"  from  whom  also  we  took  the  last  quotations.  In- 
deed, we  mostly  use  his  translation  of  the  Greek  poet,  as  it 
is  admitted  to  be  the  best  we  now  possess  in  English. 

This  remarkable  doctrine  of  ^Eschylus  is  derived,  it  seems, 
from  that  "  Orphic  literature*'  of  which  we  have  already  said 
so  much.  From  which  also  are  derived  several  other  expres- 
sions of  the  tragic  poet  which  appear  in  his  works  in  the  garb 
of  proverbial  ancl  traditional  sayings,  such  as  the  extraordinary 
phrase  used  long  after  as  addressed  to  St.  Paul :  "  It  is  useless 
to  kick  against  the  pricks."  We  have  already  discussed  the 
probable  origin  of  the  Orphic  poetry ;  and  we  will  here 
merely  invite  the  reader's  attention  to  the  above  as  an  addi- 
tional proof  of  what  we  have  all  along  maintained,  namely, 
that  it  was  not  the  spurious  product  of  Christian  writers  of 
the  third  or  fourth  century  who  clothed  in  a  new  garb  the  pre- 
vious writings  of  Plato ;  since  an  Hellenic  author,  who  flourished 
before  Plato,  knew  that  old  poetry  and  profited  by  it. 


VI. 


The  same  ^Eschylus,  as  given  by  Justin  Martyr  (in  Monar- 
chia)  sets  forth  the  power  of  God  (in  one  of  his  lost  tragedies) 
in  the  following  splendid  outburst  of  poetry : 

"  Place  God  apart  from  mortals  ;  and  think  not 

That  He  is,  like  thyself,  corporeal. 
*    Thou  knowest  Him  not.     Now  He  appears  as  fire, 
Dread  force !  as  water  now ;  and  now  as  gloom ; 
And  in  the  beasts  is  dimly  shadowed  forth, 
%  In  wind,  and  cloud,  in  lightning,  thunder,  rain  ; 

And  minister  to  Him  the  seas  and  rocks, 
Each  fountain  and  the  water's  floods  and  streams. 
The  mountains  tremble,  and  the  earth,  the  vast 
Abyss  of  sea,  and  towering  height  of  hills, 
When  on  them  looks  the  Sovereign's  awful  eye : 
Almighty  is  the  glory  of  the  Most  High  God." 
28 


416  GENTILISM. 

Is  not  this  another  proof  of  our  so-often-repeated  assertion  : 
that  the  higher  we  go  in  time,  the  more  orthodox  are  the 
ancient  writers,  ami  the  more  like  they  appear  to  the  true  in- 
spired prophets  of  God  ?  ^Eschylus,  it  is  known,  is  the  oldest 
great  tragic  writer  of  Greece. 

Sophocles,  almost  his  contemporary,  is  likewise  full  of  grand 
thoughts,  worthy  of  a  remote  age.  A  most  remarkable  passage 
of  one  of  his  lost  poems,  has  been  preserved  by  Hecateeus,  and 
is  quoted  by  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  (Stromata) : 

''  One  in  very  truth,  God  is  one, 
Who  made  the  heaven  and  the  far  stretching  earth, 
The  Deep's  blue  billow,  and  the  might  of  wind% 
But  of  us  mortals,  many  erring  far 
la  heart,  as  solace  for  our  woes,  have  raised 
Images  of  gods — of  stone,  or  else  of  brass, 
Or  figures  wrought  of  gold  or  i^>ry ; 
And  sacrifices  and  vain  festivals 
To  these  appointing,  deem  ourselves  devout." 

The  old  Greek  comic  poets,  who  flourished  before  Aristo- 
phanes, have  also  often  rendered  testimony  to  the  superior 
orthodoxy  of  early  literature.  Unfortunately  we  possess  only 
a  few  fragments  of  their  works.  We  have  already  spoken  of 
Epicharmus,  whom  Plato  was  fond  of  consulting.  A  passage 
of  Diphilus,  quoted  by  St.  Clement,  is  remarkable  for  the  pre- 
cise notion  he  entertained  of  a  future  judgment : 

"  Thinkest  thou,  O  Niceratus,  that  the  dead, 
Who  in  all  kinds  of  luxury  in  life  have  shared* 
Escape  the  Deity,  as,  if  forgot  ? 
There  is  an  eye  of  justice,  which  sees  all. 
For  two  ways,  as  we  deem,  to  Hades  lead —  • 

One  for  the  good,  the  other  for  the  bad. 
But  if  earth  hides  l>oth  for  ever,  then, 
Go  plunder,  steal,  rob,  and  be  turbulent. 
But  err  not.  For  in  Hades  judgment  is 
Which  God  the  Lord  of  all  will  execute, 
Whose  name  too  dreadful  is  for  me  to  name, 


GEEEK   AND    LATEST   POETS.  417 

Who  gives  to  sinners  length  of  earthly  life. 

If  any  mortal  thinks  that  day  by  day, 

While  doing  ill,  he  eludes  the  gods'  keen  sight, 

His  thoughts  are  evil ;  and  when  justice  has 

The  leisure,  he  shall  then  detected  be 

So  thinking.     Look,  whoever  you  be  that  say 

That  there  is  not  a  God.     There  is,  there  is. 

If  one,  by  nature  evil,  evil  does, 

Let  him  redeem  the  time ;  for  such  as  he 

Shall  by  and  by  due  punishment  receive." 

We  have  before  remarked  that  Plato  also  had  very  precise 
and  clear  ideas  of  a  future  judgment ;  not  before  the  tribunal 
of  Minos,  but  before  that  of  God.  Did  he  take  them  from 
the  works  of  the  comic  poets  (strange  comic  poets  indeed)  ? 
or  from  the  fragments  left  of  old  philosophers  or  lawgivers  ? 

"We  will  conclude  our  quotations  by  a  short  passage  from 
Aratus,  who  lived  in  the  third  century  before  Christ,  and  whom 
St.  Paul  honored  by  a  quotation.  Our  readers  may  like  to  see 
something  more  explicit  of  the  text  out  of  which  the  great 
apostle  of  the  Gentiles  took  the  phrase,  "  Ipsiibs  enim  genus 
sumus"  It  is  take'n  from  the  "  Phenomena  "  of  Aratus  : 

"  With  Zeus  let  us  begin  ;  Whom  let  us  ne'er, 
Being  men,  leave  unexpressed.     All  full  of  Zeus, 
The  streets  and  throngs  of  men,  and  full  the  sea, 
And  shores,  and  everywhere  we  Zeus  enjoy. 

For  we  also  are 

His  offspring  ; Who  bland  to  men, 

Propitious  signs  displays,  and  to  their  tasks 
Arouses.     For  these  signs  in  heaven  He  fixed, 
The  constellations  spread,  and  crowned  the  year 
With  stars  ;  to  show  to  men  the  seasons'  tasks, 
That  all  things  may  proceed  in  order  sure. 
Him  ever  first,  Him  last  too  they  adore  : 
Hail  Father,  marvel  great— great  boon  to  men  !  " 

A  great  number  of  such  texts  can  be  found  in  Eusebius' 
"  Prseparatio  Evarigelica,"  in  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  St.  Jus- 


418  GEISTTILISM. 

tin  Martyr  "  de  Monarcliia,"  and  in  many  other  Fathers  of  the 
Church. 

Hence  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  could  say  in  general  of 
the  question  which  occupies  us  (Strom.,  Book  v.) :  "  No  race 
anywhere  of  tillers  of  the  soil,  or  nomads,  and  not  even  of 
dwellers  in  cities,  can  live  without  being  imbued  with  the  faith 
of  one  superior  Being.  Wherefore,  every  eastern  nation,  and 
every  nation  touching  the  western  shores,  or  the  north,  or  to- 
wards '  the  south — all  have  one  and  the  same  preconception  of 
Him  who  hath  appointed  the  government  of  the  universe; 
since  the  most  universal  of  His  operations  equally  pervade  all. 
Much  more  did  the  philosophers  among  the^Greeks,  devoted  to 
investigation,  starting  from  the  barbarian  philosophy,  attribute 
providence  to  the  invisible,  and  sole,  and  most  powerful,  and 
most  skilful,  and  supreme  cause  of  all  things." 


YII. 

Knowing,  as  we  do,  how  Latin  literature  became  early  im- 
pressed with  the  Hellenic  form,  and  adopted  not  only  the  polish 
and  exterior  elegance  of  Greek  poetry,  but  chiefly  the  thoughts 
and  even  phraseology  of  that  brilliant  nation,  we  cannot  be 
surprised  that  the  same  phenomenon,  the  study  of  which  has 
occupied  us  so  long  as  far  as  regards  the  east  of  Europe,  should 
have  been  equally  remarkaV.e  in  the  west ;  so  that  the  Roman 
philosophers,  mere  copyists  of  "those  of  Hellas,  became  the 
apostles  of  the  old  traditions  among  their  countrymen,  and  im- 
parted to  them  a  faint  flush  of  the  light  of  primitive  barbarian 
philosophy,  as  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  calls  it,  or  rather  of 
the  primitive  divine  revelation  imparted  to  mankind,  as  we 
would  prefer  to  say. 

But  it  is  chiefly  among  the  Latin  poets  that  this  becomes 
remarkable ;  although  many  passages  of  Cicero  might  be  quoted 


GEEEK    AKD    LATIN    POETS.  419 

§ 

in  support  of  our  position.  If  one  of  them — Lucretius — de- 
voted his  immense  talent  to  the  propagation  of  atheism  and 
materialism,  and  to  the  denial  of  the  great  truths  so  prevalent 
still  in  his  time,  all  the  others,  even  those  from  whom  it  was 
least  to  be  expected,  such  as  Ovid,  have  invariably  proclaimed 
those  noble  conceptions  of  ancient  seers  and  poets,  relative  to 
creation,  the  golden  age,  the  first  sin,  its  punishment,  the  flood, 
and  the  promise  of  happier  days,  committed  finally  to  immor- 
tal verse  by  Yirgil  himself,  as  the  "  renovation  of  ages,"  and 
the  renewal  of  the  "  reign  of  Virgin  Astrsea,"  or  Justice. 

When  we  read  the  beginning  of  the  first  book  of  the  "  Meta- 
morphoses "  of  Ovid,  we  are  surprised  to  see  so  many  points  of 
coincidence  with  revealed  truth  in  Genesis  /  and  although  pa- 
ganism had  certainly  tainted  many  of  those  great  original  tradi- 
tions, yet  so  much  of  them  remain  that  we  wonder  how  they 
could  have  been  so  well  preserved  in  the  midst  of  such  a  mul- 
titude of  absurd  myths  and  fables.  The  exception  of  Lucre- 
tius' poem  increases  still  more  our  surprise  ;  since  it  was  only 
an  exception ;  and  the  Romans  of  the  tune  knew  that  to  be  so. 
Hence  it  was  opposed  with  a  kind  of  horror  by  all  those  who 
had  not  admitted  the  doctrines  of  Epicurus.  The  fact,  also, 
that  a  great  polemic  writer  of  the  seventeenth  century,  Cardi- 
nal Polignae,  thought  he  would  render  a  service  to  religion  by 
writing  a  refutation  of  Lucretius  in  Latin  verse,  shows  that 
those  times  of  the  Augustan  age  were  very  like  our  own,  when 
the  flood  of  light  poured  upon  mankind  by  the  revelation  of  the 
Gospel  is  dimmed  by  the  faint  equivocations  of  adversaries, 
and  has  to  be  kept  in  its  brightness  by  renewed  and  definite 
affirmations  of  the  truth.  At  the  epoch,  therefore,  of  the 
greatest  moral  corruption  in  Rome,  the  truth  was  known,  or  at 
least  suspected,  by  many ;  and  only  a  comparatively  few  re- 
jected it,  in  order  to  introduce  false  theories  and  disorganizing 
Utopias  ;  much  as  we  witness  in  our  age. 

It  must  be  particularly  remarked,  that  the  Latin  poets  did 


420  GENTILISM. 

• 

not  proclaim  it  as  a  modern  discovery  of  philosophers,  as  a 
bright  result  of  individual  inquiry.  They  sang  of  it  as  a  "  pre- 
cious deposit  "  handed  down  to  us  from  ancestors,  as  a  deriva 
tion,  in  fact,  of  a  heavenly  voice  addressed  to  man  from  the 
beginning.  The  opposing  systems — those  flippant  theories  of 
atheism  and  unbelief — were  openly  declared  to  be  new  /  they 
had  been  found  out  by  the  deep  minds  of  philosophers  of  latter 
times ;  and  the  very  course  they  advocated  was  the  rejection  of 
old  tales,  as  they  called  them,  for  the  pure  doctrine  of  modern 
philosophy.  Would  it  be  possible  for  us  to  find  a  more  cogent 
argument  in  support  of  our  thesis  ? 

It  is  unnecessary  to  burden  our  pages  with  a  number  of  quo- 
tations from  the  Latin  poets,  as  all  those  who  are  likely  to  be 
our  readers  are  quite  familiar  with  them.  A  glance  at  them  in 
order  to  elicit  their  significance  in  relation  to  our  subject  will 
be  sufficient.  Who  has  not  been  struck  with  the  strange  ano- 
maly of  a  long  series  of  authors,  poets  principally,  whose  chief 
source  of  inspiration  is  the  prevalent  and  popular  mythology, 
brilliant  on  the  surface,  it  is  true,  but  in  reality  absurd,  irra- 
"tional,  and  immoral ;  yet  occasionally  startling  one  by  concepts 
of  the  highest  order,  involving  of  necessity  a  deep  knowledge 
of  things  human  and  divine,  and  speaking  of  the  highest  con- 
cerns of  the  soul,  almost  as  an  enlightened  Christian  would  in 
a  refined  age  ?  And,  we  may  add,  that,  when  those  great  and 
immortal  writers  venture  to  touch  on  those  sublime  topics, 
they  invariably  tell  us  that  it  is  ancient  wisdom  which  speaks 
through  them ;  that  they  are  merely  the  mouth-pieces  of  old 
seers  and  prophets ;  and  that  it  is  the  deep  poetry  of  the  most 
ancient  times  from  which  they  draw  their  inspiration. 

Thus,  in  Greece  and  Rome,  we  see  two  great  streams  of  relig- 
ion and  ethics  running  parallel  to  each  other ;  most  distinct, 
and  in  every  respect  opposite;  yet,  watering  the  same  coun- 
tries, feeding  the  same  soil,  and  nourishing  apart,  but  in  the 
same  fields,  flowers  and  fruits  on  one  side,  and  baneful  poisons 


GEEEK    AXD    LATIN    POETS.  421 

on  the  other.  Unfortunately  one  of  these  streams  was  the 
only  one  apparent  to  the  multitude,  the  only  one  from  which 
mankind  received  its  "  culture,"  as  it  is  called,  the  only  one  to 
mould  men,  and  give  them  a  shape.  This  was  polytheism. 
The  other  running,  as  it  were,  under  ground ;  well  known  to  a 
few,  because  deep  knowledge  was  then  possible  only  to  a  few, 
and  these  few  were  afraid  of  communicating  to  the  multitude 
doctrines  which  they  were  not  prepared  to  receive. 

Hence,  in  order  to  make  ourselves  of  these  modern  ages 
acquainted  with  the  existence  of  that  hidden  stream  in  anti- 
quity, we  have  to  search  with  untiring  industry  into  the  varied 
lore  of  those  old  times,  and  to  avail  ourselves  of  all  the  aid 
our  Christian  criticism  and  appreciation  can  afford  us.  And 
although  the  "ancients"  have  been  known  and  studied,  not 
only  from  the  "  revival "  in  the  fifteenth  century,  but  from  the 
very  formation  of  modern  nations  after  the  overflow  of  barba- 
rism, yet  it  is  only  in  our  days  that  the  true  knowledge  of  the 
tendency  and  manifold  bearings  of  the  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome  has  begun  to  be  truly  known  and  appreciated. 

It  may  be  even  said  that  in  the  opinion  of  many,  even  living 
authors,  the  noble  river  flowing  from  the  primitive  ages,  and 
enriching  the  literature  of  Eastern  and  Central  Europe  during 
pagan  times,  is  not  considered  as  sufficiently  ascertained  to  be 
altogether  relied  upon ;  and  these  men  see  only  in  polytheist 
Greece  and  Rome  a  mass  of  absurd  tales  and  conceits  impossi- 
ble to  be  systematized.  Thus  the  author  of  "  Gentile  and 
Jew,"  writing  of  Gentilism,  brings  forward  the  treasure  of  a 
vast  erudition,  but  fragmentary,  confused,  incapable  of  being 
reduced  to  any  approved  whole.  It  is  the  chaos  of  a  discon- 
nected polytheism,  whose  limbs,  broken  and  disjointed,  lay  be- 
fore you  in  a  maze  of  confusion  ;  from  the  study  of  which  you 
i  i»e  up  not  one  whit  more  enlightened  than  when  you  sat  down 
to  its  perusal.  As  to  the  other  hidden  stream  flowing  silently 
from  remote  ages,  and  bearing  the  testimony  of  primitive 


422  GENTILISM. 

dom  and  true  culture,  not  a  word  is  said  of  it ;  probably  be- 
cause, in  the  opinion  of  the  author,  it  would  have  been  unscien- 
tific— this  is  the  word  now  used — start  what  to  him  appeared  a 
mere  problematic  theory,  since,  forsooth,  the  "  ancients  "  did  not 
positively  announce  it  in  so  many  words,  or  only  rarely,  and 
it  is  thus  to  be  deduced  from  diligent  investigation,  erudite 
reasoning,  and  exhumation  of  a  long-buried  literature.  For  the 
same  reason,  most  probably,  the  same  writer,  in  speaking  of 
Judaism,  and  pretending  to  unfold  the  true  religion  of  the 
"  people  of  God,"  does  not  mention,  even  once,  so  far  as  we 
remember,  the  typical  character  of  their  worship,  which  was 
in  fact  the  chief  one.  No  allusion  is  made  to  the  temporary, 
figurative,  and  shadowy  nature  of  a  religion  whose  only  object 
was  twofold :  to  keep  more  securely,  and  with  more  purity, 
the  deposit  of  the  old  traditions  than  the  Gentiles  could  do, 
and  to  prepare  the  world  for  a  universal  belief  and  worship, 
at  whose  appearing  the  special  mission  of  Judaism  would  cease. 
Hence,  all  the  splendid  interpretations  of  the  Mosaic  law  and 
customs,  given  by  all  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  without  excep- 
tion, either  Greek  or  Latin,  are  thrown  aside  as  unworthy,  it 
would  seem,  of  the  exegesis  of  our  enlightened  age  ;  as  if 
Origen  particularly,  the  great  interpreter  of  Judaic  myths  and 
figures,  was  altogether  a  childish  exegetist  of  Scripture,  in  com- 
parison with  the  numerous  array  of  German  naturalistic  ex- 
pounders of  the  Bible ! 

To  our  thinking,  on  the  other  hand,  the  existence  in  Greece 
and  Rome,  of  a  mighty  undercurrent  of  what  we  call  the  prim- 
itive revelation,  is  a  well-ascertained  fact,  although  undoubt- 
edly the  great  mass  of  Romans  and  Greeks  was  completely  un- 
aware of  it ;  and  even  those  writers  in  whose  noble  productions 
the  sacred  fragments  of  this  tradition  are  yet  now  found,  were 
often  themselves  unable  to  appreciate  them  thoroughly.  Py- 
+hagoras  and  Plato,  the  last  one  chiefly,  seem  to  have  been  the 
two  men  who  were  the  most  fully  imbued  with  the  holiness 


GKEEK   AND    LATEST   POETS.        *  423 

of  the  ancient  doctrine ;  and  who  spoke  of  it  with  a  respect,  a 
conviction,  and  a  noble  simplicity  worthy  o€  the  subject.  In 
the  Latin  world  it  had  become,  we  may  say,  a  mere  literary 
fire-~bug,  good  for  an  exhibition  of  poetic  talent,  and  to  strike 
the  beholder  with  amazement  and  surprise.  Ovid,  probably, 
saw  in  those  great  thoughts  of  ancient  time,  only  a  means  of 
turning  agreeable  and  pointed  verses ;  and  he  must  have  read 
over  many  times  with  a  secret,  but  well-pleased  vanity,  the  lines 
in  which  he  described  the  noble  and  erect  standing  of  man  in 
the  midst  of  grovelling  and  low-born  animals  :  "  Os  homini  sub- 
lime dedit . . . ."  As  to  Yirgil,  it  is  enough  to  say  that  in  the 
Eclogue,  where  he  seems  to  be  a  translator  of  Isaiah,  he  had 
most  probably  in  view  only  to  celebrate  the  birth  of  a  promis- 
ing l>oy  to  his  friend  Pollio. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this,  the  fact  is  indubitable  that  in  the 
midst  of  idolatry,  there  was  then  in  pagan  Europe  a  faint 
remembrance  of  holier  doctrines  and  promises ;  and  this  is  all 
we  have  to  establish. 

YIII. 

But  of  the  other  stream,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  over- 
whelming and  devastating.  We  have  endeavored  to  impart 
some  faint  idea  of  it.  To  convey  anything  like  an  adequate 
conception  would  require  a  volume  of  much'  larger  bulk  than 
we  should  like  to  impose  on  the  patience  of  our  readers.  It 
would  require  a  condensation  of  all  that  the  Fathers  of  the 
Church  in  the  four  or  five  first  centuries  have  said  of  the  fool- 
ishness, absurdity,  immorality,  and  universal  demoralization  of 
polytheism.  It  would  require  a  solid  array  of  passages  scattered 
through  a  large  number  of  volumes,  and  unknown,  for  the  most 
part  of  them,  to  our  generation,  to  whom  the  taste  is  wanting 
of  going  through  the  simple  enumeration  of  those  absurdities. 
Yet  it  is  a  sad  fact  that  these  "  absurdities  "  were  the  "  daily 


424  •  GENTILISM. 

bread  "  of  great  and  apparently  enlightened  nations  ;  that  they 
formed,  we  may  sly,  the  staple  of  their  life ;  and  that  for  mil- 
lions of  human  beings,  during  many  ages,  there  was  no  other 
religion  ;  indeed,  no  other  poetry,  art,  ancient  history,  current 
literature,  nor  source  of  ethics,  or  national  aspirations,  but 
what  was  derived  from  the  senseless  and  immoral  legends  of 
those  gods  and  goddesses.  And  even  the  few  noble  minds  who 
had  sense  enough  to  despise  and  abominate  the  whole  corrupt 
mass,  found  themselves  under  the  necessity  of  speaking  with 
respect  of  it ;  yea,  of  practising  outwardly  the  ridiculous  nonsense 
'  of  the  national  religion,  and  to  become  fools  among  fools,  and 
dotards  among  children. 

But  what  ought  to  attract  our  attention  chiefly,  is  the  ulti- 
mate disintegration  which  those  senseless  rites  brought  among 
nations  submitted  to  them.  We  saw  it  existing,  to  a  certain 
extent,  in  Hiudostan,  and  to  a  great  degree  in  Egypt,  where  we 
particularly  remarked  it,  in  speaking  of  animal- worship  along 
the  Nile.  We  observed  the  same  in  Greece,  described  in  a 
bold  sketch,  although  in  a  few  words,  by  St.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria. Religion,  which  ought  to  be  the  bond  of  nations,  had 
become  the  source  of  endless  divisions  ;  and  if  the  Greeks  had 
not  had  their  common  language,  their  common  taste  for  art, 
their  ardent  love  of  liberty,  and  their  primitive  spirit  of  coali- 
tion in  forming  confederacies,  their  religion  would  have  carried 
among  them  disintegration  down  to  the  last  social  element — 
the  village  or  the  hamlet.  Then  they  would  not  have  had  to 
say  only,  "Hera  is  worshipped  at  Samos,  Apollo  at  Delos, 
Athene  at  Athens,  Artemis  Orthia  at  Sparta,  Yenus  at  Gnidos 
and  Cythera,  Zeus  at  Olympia,  and  BO  of  the  others."  They 
would  have  had  to  complete  the  list  which  St.  Clement  of 
Alexandria  only  began  ;  and  the  whole  would  have  been  a  per- 
fect picture  of  a  complete  decomposition  of  polytheism  itself. 
Prof.  Heeren — whom  we  have  already  quoted  so  frequently, 
and  whom  we  like  to  quote  on  account  of  the  lucidity  of  his 


GEEEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  425 

ideas,  the  general  sobriety  of  his  views,  and  his  thorough 
knowledge  of  antiquity — is  obliged  to  use  the  following  lan- 
guage (Ancient  Greece,  Ch.  7th) :  "  Unlike  the  religious  of 
the  East,  the  religion  of  the  Hellenes  was  supported  by  no 
sacred  books,  was  connected  with  no  peculiar  doctrines ;  it 
could  not,  therefore,  serve  like  the  former  to  unite  a  nation  by 

means  of  a  common  religion As  the  nation  had  no 

caste  of  priests,  nor  even  a  united  order  of  priesthood,  it  nat- 
urally followed,  that  though  individual  temples  could  in  a  cer- 
tain degree  become  national  temples,  this  must  depend,  for  the 
most  part,  on  accidental  circumstances  ;  and  where  everything 
was  voluntary,  nothing  could  be  settled  by  established  forms 
like  those  which  prevailed  in  other  countries."  Heeren,  it  is 
true,  afterwards  pretends  that  in  spite  of  these  adverse  circum- 
stances, two  or  three  temples  became  really  national,  on  account 
of  the  oracles  connected  with  them ;  he  names  those  of  Do- 
dona  and  Delphi,  which  he  thinks  formed,  through  the  oracles, 
the  connecting  link  between  politics  and  religion ;  and  he  says 
that :  "  Their  great  political  influence,  especially  in  the  States 
of  the  Doric  race,  is  too  well  known  from  history  to  make  it* 
necessary  to  adduce  proofs  of  it."  But  finally  he  confesses — 
and  this  is  worthy  of  attention — that  "  Their  great  political  in- 
fluence became  less  after  the  Persian  war When  the  re- 
ciprocal hatred  of  the  Athenians  and  Spartans  excited  them  to 
the  fury  of  civil  war,  how  much  suffering  would  have  been 
spared  to  Greece,  if  the  voice  of  the  gods  had  been  able  to 
avert  the  storm  ! " 

This  quotation  from  the  Gottingen  Professor  offers  a  strong 
confirmation  of  our  argument ;  since  he  himself  does  not  see 
any  national  temple  and  national  religion  in  Greece,  except 
through  oracles,  which  originally  were  counted  to  the  number 
of  three  or  four,  gradually  were  reduced  to  that  of  Delphi 
alone,  and  finally  this  last,  not  long  after  the  Persian  war,  be- 
came silent.  That  silence  had  been  already  of  a  long  duration 


426  GENTILISM. 

when  Plutarch  wrote  his  treatise :  De  oraculorum  defectu. 
Hence  we  ought  not  to  be  surprised,  especially  after  perusing 
these  remarks  of  Heeren,  that  in  the  time  of  St.  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  long  after  the  disappearance  of  all  oracular  priest- 
esses, religion  was  reduced  to  the  state  he  so  graphically  de- 
scribed. 

The  Greek  nationality  was  never  compact ;  it  was  always,  in 
fact,  an  aggregation  of  small  tribes,  each  with  its  customs,  tra- 
ditions, and  tales.  Plutarch  is  called  a  gossiping  writer ;  but 
on  that  account,  precisely,  he  was  eminently  Grecian.  And 
Herodotus  himself  shines  particularly  with  that  amiable  quality 
of  what  the  French  carl  "un  conteur."  All  the  great  Hellenic 
writers,  not  excepting  the  tragic  dramatists,  show  the  same 
idiosyncrasy.  We  may  call  it  the  clannish  spirit,  fond  of  vil- 
lage tales.  In  a  word,  the  supposed  powerful  confederacy  of 
Grecian  States  was  merely  an  aggregation  of  clans,  constantly 
changing  their  respective  attitude  by  forming  or  dissolving 
their  alliances  or  feuds.  And  this  is  so  remarkable,  that  any- 
one who  labors  under  the  almost  universal  mistake  of  suppos- 
ing a  strong  cohesion  among  them,  owing  to  what  is  called 
their  patriotism,  is,  or  ought  to  be,  altogether  unsettled  in  his 
belief,  when  he  reads  in'the  great  work  of  the  "  Father  of  His- 
tory," that  the  only  Greeks  who  fought  at  Marathon  were 
"  some  thousand  Athenians,  and  a  few  hundred  Platseans ; " 
and  that  when  Xerxes  with  his  millions  of  men  invaded  Hellas, 
even  before  he  left  Persia,  all  the  Greek  States  had  granted 
him  "  earth  and  water,"  except  the  Spartans  who  perished  at 
the  Thermopylae  to  the  number  of  "  three  hundred,"  and  the 
Athenians  who  left  their  city  to  obey  "  the  oracle  "  and  repair- 
ed on  their  "  wooden  ships  "  to  wander  about  the  ocean  whilst 
the  enemy  burned  Athens.  We  have  no  wish  to  detract  from 
the  glory  attached  to  the  great  names  of  Leonidas,  Miltiades, 
and  Themistocles.  Their  memory  is  immortal,  and  the  forti- 
tude alone  with  which,  at  the  head  of  a  few  thousand  brave 


GEEEX    AXD    LATIX    POETS.  427 

warriors,  they  encountered  the  mighty  armaments  of  the  Per- 
sians, would  of  itself  render  them  for  ever  glorious.  But  it 
would  be  folly  to  think  that  the  innumerable  troops  led  on  by 
Mardonius  and  Xerxes  were  defeated  only  by  the  diminutive 
forces  which  met  them  at  Thermopylae  and  Marathon ;  and 
even  by  the  Athenian  fleet  in  the  ./Egean  sea.  "What  would 
become,  in  that  case,  of  the  memorable  saying  of  Napoleon, 
that  success  is  attached  to  "  les  gros  bataillons"  f  The  fact  is, 
that  the  Persians  were  chiefly  defeated  by  their  own  huge  bulk. 
They  were  too  unwieldly  to  manoeuvre,  and  too  numerous  to 
feed. 

The  great  Persian  war,  therefore,  is  no  proof  of  a  strong 
nationality  among  the  Greeks.  All  the  events  of  the  contest 
prove  the  contrary.  The  Persian  hosts,  as  they  rolled  on 
Greece,  met  a  few  tribes,  standing  resolutely  before  them  ; 
and  as  might  have  been  expected,  they  melted  away  in  a  few. 
months  in  the  plains  and  around  the  mountains  of  a  country 
where  they  could  not  be  recruited,  and  could  not  live  after 
having  "  drank  the  rivers  "  and  devoured  the  "  produce  of  the 
fields  "  of  the  year  previous. 

But  how  is  it  that  there  was  no  compact  nationality  among 
the  Greeks  ?  They  appeared  made  to  form  a  great  nation. 
They  all  had  strong  aspirations  after  the  same  form  of  govern- 
ment— the  republican ;  they  loved  their  country,  spoke  the 
same  language,  were  great  organizers,  mighty  colonizers  ;  they 
all  had  the  same  tastes  of  simplicity  of  living,  apparel,  and 
dwelling.  With  the  exception  of  those  barbarians  of  Sparta, 
they  carried  elegance  and  good  taste  farther  than  it  has  ever 
been  carried  by  any  other  race  on  earth  ;  they  were  brave,  well 
instructed,  well  made,  strong  of  body,  acute  of  mind,  etc.,  etc. 
How  is  it,  we  repeat  again,  that  they  never  formed  a  great 
nation  ?  The  reason  is  plain,  many  will  say :  "  They  could 
not  coalesce  to  form  a  large  State,  through  their  love  of  liberty, 
and  thus  they  remained  wedded  to  their  fragmentary  exist- 


428  GENTILISM. 

ence."  This,  we  confess,  cannot  satisfy  us.  They  could  have 
remained  free,  even  in  a  different  state  of  agglomeration. 
Great  organizers  as  they  were,  they  could  have  introduced  the 
free  institutions  common  to  all  the  tribes,  into  a  larger  organ- 
ism than  that  of  the  city.  They  never  thought  of  it ;  and 
Plato  himself,  in  writing  his  description  of  an  imaginary 
republic,  supposes  it  confined  to  a  few  villages  and  one  larger 
city.  And  when  there  was  question  of  establishing  it  in  fact, 
he  relied  on  the  promise  of  Dionysius,  the  Tyrant  of  Syracuse, 
to  give  him  a  few  miles  of  territory  in  Sicily.  Within  thus 
narrow  a  range  were  limited  the  views  of  the  Greeks  as  to 
the  constitution  of  States.  What  was  the  cause  of  this  ?  The 
true  explication  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  axiom :  To 
expand  the  ideas,  and  to  raise  the  mind  up  to  the  level  of  so 
great  a  subject  as  that  of  the  permanent  constitution  of  civil 
society,  religion  must  be  the  preponderating  term.  Hence 
Rome,  in  order  to  extend  and  consolidate  her  power,  had  to 
spread  her  religious  ideas  by  admitting  the  gods  of  the  nations 
she  conquered.  It  was  an  unsatisfactory  solution  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  could  not  succeed  in  the  long  run  ;  but  something  of 
the  kind  had  to  be  done,  and  this,  at  least,  she  did. 

Greece  never  attempted  anything  of  the  same  nature,  with 
the  exception  of  the  two  or  three  oracular  temples  she  built, 
which,  in  time,  disappeared,  and  left  her  to  the  desolation  of 
"  individualism."  Here  is  to  be  found  the  true  explanation  of 
the  clannish  political  views  of  the  Greeks,  even  of  their  ablest 
writers  on  political  philosophy.  The  disorganization  of  relig- 
ious thought  amongst  the  Hellenes  was  the  true  source  of  their 
complete  social  and  political  disorganization.  Heeren  himself 
saw  a  great  difference,  which  he  especially  noticed,  between 
the  religious  worship  of  Hellas  and  that  of  India  or  Egypt, 
with  respect  to  nationality  or  universality  of  belief.  Yet,  as 
was  seen,  disintegration  entered  deeply,  in  course  of  time,  into 
the  cult  of  these  two  great  races.  !N either  India  nor  Egypt 


GEEEK    AXD    LATIN    POETS.  429 

were  so  well  known  in  the  time  of  the  Gottingen  Professor  as 
tliey  are  now.  It  is  now  ascertained  much  more  clearly  than 
it  was  forty  years  ago,  that  a  deep  "  sectarian "  strife,  intro- 
duced chiefly  by  the  rank  idolatry  of  the  tantras — although 
many  ages  before  Buddhism  had  already  produced  the  same 
result  —  agitated  Hindostan  and  divided  it  into  fragments,  in 
spite  of  the  pretended  national  religion,  of  which  Heeren 
speaks.  And,  as  to  the  Egyptians  of  Pharaonic  times,  we 
think  we  have  proved  sufficiently  the  great  difference  in  homo- 
geneity of  thought  throughout  the  country,  between  the  old 
dynasties  previous  to  the  eighteenth,  and  the  last  ones  during 
which  Amasis  and  Psammeticus  flourished.  The  opposition  of 
north  and  south,  city  and  city,  hamlet  and  hamlet,  appears 
principally  in  the  later  times ;  and  it  must  have  been 
so,  owing  to  the  ever  -  increasing  division  in  worship  and 
customs. 

At  the  very  outset  of  the  human  race,  it  is  true  that  the 
division  among  men  appears,  at  first  sight,  to  have  been  as 
great  as  it  ever  was  afterwards  ;  for  then  clanship  was  flourish- 
ing everywhere.  The  whole  globe  was  covered  with  tribes. 
The  patriarchal  epoch  was  eminently  an  epoch  of  septs.  Does 
not  this  settle  the  question  ?  Have  we  not  defeated  ourselves  ? 
^ot  in  the  least.  First,  the  tribal  state  in  mankind  subsisted 
many  ages  after  the  patriarchal  period  had  ceased  ;  and,  as  we 
have  before  observed,  the  work  of  Strabo  is  the  most  irrefrag- 
able proof  of  our  assertion.  Let  any  one  open  it  anywhere  at 
random,  he  will  find  that  his  geography  is  a  mere  tribal  geog- 
raphy. Yet  Strabo  lived  under  Augustus.  Thus  the  Roman 
Empire  itself  had  not  changed  this  state  of  things,  nor  had  it 
destroyed  the  primitive  septs.  It  had  only  done  what  all  pre- 
vious empires  had  effected.  It  had  aggregated  living  tribal 
organizations  into  a  huge  administrative  system.  In  fact,  we 
repeat,  in  going  through  the  pages  of  universal  history,  the 
reader  has  to  come  down  to  our  own  days  before  he  reaches 


430  GENTILISM. 

the  great  epoch  of  the  absorption  of  tribes  into  huge  bodies 
called  "  nationalities,"  yea,  more,  centralized  nationalities. 

We  know  how  Napoleon  III.  thought  he  had  discovered  a 
great  fact — and  had  immortalized  himself  by  the  discovery— 
when  he  threw  the  word  before  Europe  and  mankind.  The 
fact  is,  the  word  was  scarcely  used  before.  Certainly  it  was 
not  understood  in  this  its  new  sense ;  and  we  conclude  that 
the  latter  times  of  polytheism  had  no  advantage,  in  that 
regard,  over  the  patriarchal  period.  Tribal  division  existed 
in  both  cases ;  but  this  is  not  the  question  we  are  discussing. 
The  real  question  is  of  mental  division,  doctrinal  antipathy, 
religious  animosity.  There  was  nothing  of  the  kind  in  prim- 
itive times.  All  the  tribes  originally  worshipped  One  God ; 
had  the  same  moral  principles,  the  same  traditions  on  creation, 
providence,  sin,  expiation,  aspirations  towards  a  future  which 
would  repair  the  evil.  Pantheism,  polytheism,  idolatry,  are 
not  coeval  with  the  origin  of  man,  in  spite  of  what  the  new 
"  leaders  of  thought "  may  say.  They  came  af terwards,  and 
brought  on  "  sectarianism ;".  that  is,  antagonism  in  mind,  strife 
in  belief,  division  in  hopes,  confusion  in  worship,  anarchy  in 
the  spiritual  world  of  man,  and  as  the  ultimate  conclusion,  the 
frightful  appearance  of  mere  "individualism,"  which  is  rising 
again  in  our  days,  after  having  been  exorcised  by  Christianity. 

Thus  the  physical  globe  itself,  by  which  we  began  these  con- 
siderations, and  to  which  we  return  at  the  end  of  them,  was 
altogether  diverted  from  the  primitive  plan  of  God.  The  seas, 
the  rivers,  the  mountains,  the  deserts  did  not  continue  to  be 
mere  geographical  limits,  to  be  subsequently  overcome,  and  to 
become — some  of  them,  at  least — a  powerful  means  of  inter- 
communication. These  limits  did  no  more  separate  commu- 
nities united  in  faith,  and  accepting — all — the  same  social  and 
religious  principles,  showing  the  unity  of  their  origin  by  the 
admission  of  the  same  great  truths  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of 
all  minds.  They,  now,  divided  races  dissociated  by  mutual 


GREEK    AND    LATIN    POETS.  431 

antipathies,  religious,  political,  and  social.  They  made  the 
globe,  which  we  call  "  our  Earth,"  intended,  at  first,  to  be  the 
dwelling  of  a  universal  family,  having  the  same  worship,  the 
same  hopes  and  fears,  the  same  eternal  destiny  and  temporal 
happiness  —  they  made  it — what?  '  An  agglomeration  of  dis- 
tinct "  small  parks,"  each  inclosed  with  a  strong  fence  ;  eac-h 
containing  a  peculiar  kind  of  wild  beasts,  growling  at  the  bar- 
barians outside,  and  intent  finally  on  devouring  each  other, 
after  having  tried  to  enslave  or  devour  the  "  foreigners."  And 
this  horrible  state  of  things  was  caused  chiefly  by  a  frightful 
departure  from  a  primitive  common  faith,  and  by  the  adoption 
of  separate  and  degrading  superstitions,  all  evidently  originat- 
ing from  the  Evil  One,  the  great  adversary  of  God  and  man, 
wishing  to  be  worshipped  by  senseless  admirers,  and  to  intro- 
duce on  earth  the  anarchy  of  hell. 

And  to  show  how  the  configuration  of  the  globe,  so  evi- 
dently made  for  an  altogether  different  purpose,  was  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  him,  to  divide  and  sub-divide  mankind,  we  have 
only  to  turn  a  moment  to  the  physical  geography  of  Greece, 
since  it  is  of  Greece  we  are  now  speaking. 

Look  first  at  the  southern  peninsula  called  Peloponnesus,  a 
kind  of  miniature  Switzerland,  with  its  small  central  plateau, 
celebrated  under  the  name  of  Arcadia.  The  very  word  evokes 
ideas  of  peaceful  pastoral  life,  rural  happiness,  and  never-fail- 
ing abundance.  Yet,  from  this  central  paradise  radiate  S3ven 
short  chains  of  mountains,  which  will  divide  effectually  as 
many  tribes,  if  not  more,  all  hostile  to  one  another.  The  Tay- 
getus,  one  of  them,  will  interpose  its  rude  peaks  and  impractic- 
able valleys  between  the  Laeonians  and  Messenians.  In  spite 
of  the  apparently  insurmountable  obstacle,  a  relentless  war  will 
be  waged  between  the  two  tribes.  And  if,  for  many  centuries, 
the  Messenians  are  reduced  to  "  helotism,"  the  spirit  of  mutual 
hatred  will  never  be  extinguished,  and  Epaminondas,  much 
later,  will  think  himself  immortalized  by  a  final  revenge  in 
29 


432  GEXTILISM. 

favor  of  the  Messenians  in  vindicating  the  rights  of  his  own 
Bceotia. 

Argolis,  towards  the  east,  will  be  so  completely  separated 
from  the  rest  of  the  peninsula  by  huge  rocks,  but  chiefly  by 
the  sea,  that  after  the  great  renown  of  its  primitive  heroes — 
the  Atridee — it  shall  literally  sleep  for  centuries  in  an  inglorious 
isolation  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  dramatic  stage,  how- 
ever, will  take  good  care  to  remind  all  posterity  that  the  land 
of  Argos  was  stained  at  first  by  frightful  crimes,  the  feast  of 
Atreus  and  Thyestes,  the  adultery  of  Clytemnestra,  the  murder 
of  Agamemnon  by  this  she-wolf,  dying  herself  finally  under 
the  dagger  of  her  own  son,  Orestes.  With  such  an  unenviable 
renown,  the  Argives  did  well  not  to  engage  any  more  in  strife. 
But  their  subsequent  obscurity  is  a  strong  proof  of  their  com- 
plete isolation,  favored  by  an  almost  insular  position  on  the 
sea,  and  a  complete  want  of  intercourse  with  their  nearest  Pe- 
loponnesian  neighbors. 

Elis,  in  the  west  of  the  peninsula,  formed  an  exception  there- 
in, and  remained  at  peace,  owing  to  its  sacred  character,  which 
made  it,  really,  with  Delphi,  the  only  spot  of  Greece  where  the 
Hellenes  really  thought  they  had  a  common  religion ;  and  on 
this  account  Elis  enjoyed  happiness. 

But  with  the  Achseans,  on  the  north-west,  begin  again  the 
spectacle  we  have  already  depicted.  If  there  was  anywhere 
among  the  Hellenes  a  small  compact  body  animated  with  the 
feeling  of  opposition  to  all  mankind,  it  was  certainly  to  be  found 
in  Achaia.  This  *  egotistical  disposition  is  admirably  rendered 
by  the  name  of.  League — the  Achaean  league — a  combination  of 
twelve  cities  against  all  the  rest.  A  great  effort  indeed  of  the 
spirit  of  brotherhood !  To  be  able  to  combine  twelve  small 
communities  isolated  from  the  rest  of  mankind  by  rocks  on  the 
south,  and  the  sea  on  the  north,  and  to  succeed  in  persuading 
them  that  it  was  their  interest — all  lonians  as  they  were  sur- 
rounded by  Dorians — to  form  a  league  against  the  predominant 


GREEK  A:NTD  LATIX  TOETS.  433 

• 
1  >oric  race  !     This  is,  indeed,  a  true  picture  of  what  we  have 

been  all  along  insisting  upon.  This  "  league,"  however,  must 
not  be  confounded  with  the  celebrated  one,  formed  against  the 
power  of  Macedonia,  and  of  Rome,  and  which  embraced  cities 
outside  of  the  small  limits  of  Achaia.  We  speak  of  the  primi- 
tive and  ancient  league,  composed  only  of  the  Ionian  cities, 
spread  along  the  gulf  of  Corinth,  and  which  is  said  to  have 
been  first  formed  as  early  as  eleven  hundred  years  before  Christ. 
It  was  a  compact  of  twelve  towns — Patras  and  Dyme  were  the 
most  important — to  stand  together  against  the  surrounding 
world,  and  to  threaten  with  retaliation  anyone  bold  enough  to 
attack  any  one  of  them.  It  was  the  only  means  they  had  of 
procuring  for  themselves  quiet  during  a  thousand  years  ;  for 
this  was  about  the  length  of  duration  of  the  "  league."  It  is  a 
perfect  picture  of  what  the  world  then  was ;  each  small  commu- 
nity entrenched  behind  high  mountains,  large  rivers,  or  the  sea. 
Was  it  for  such  a  purpose  that  these  bold  land-marks  had  been 
drawn  on  the  surface  of  our  globe  ?  • 

Finally,  the  whole  Peloponnesian  system  of  egotism  culmi- 
nated in  the  single  city  of  Corinth,  which  formed  a  state  by 
herself,  and  bid  defiance  to  both  sides  of  the  isthmus.  Her 
"  Acropolis  "  blocked  the  land  to  the  south ;  and  the  waves  of 
the  sea  chafed  at  her -feet,  all  around  to  the  north. 

This  short  sketch  of  the  smallest  part  of  Greece — its  south- 
ern peninsula — is  sufficient  for  our  purpose.  The  same  might 
be  done  with  respect  to  a  similar  geographico-historical  de- 
scription of  Hellas.  Thessaly,  and  its  northernmost  district,  Ma- 
cedonia, would  bring  us  to  the  same  conclusion ;  but  it  would 
scarcely  render  the  picture  more  striking.  Out  of  all,  issues 
in  unmistakable  character,  that  "  individualism"  of  which  we 
spoke  previously  with  regard  to  Rome,  quoting  a  remarkable 
passage  of  the  "  Antonins "  of  Mr.  Franz  de  Champagny. 
This  last  effect  of  the  disintegration  of  religion  amongst  man- 
kind in  antiquity,  deseived  more  than  a  passing  notice,  since 


434:  GENTILISM. 

it  is  the  last  and  invariable  step  of  the  downward  progress  of 
nations  in  their  religious  degeneracy,  which  it  has  been  our 
chief  object  to  demonstrate.  Besides,  as  that  "  individualism," 
after  producing  the  deplorable  religious  results  which  have 
been  all  along  the  main  subject  of  our  investigations,  was  like- 
wise the  cause  of  national  and  civil  disintegration,  it  was  im- 
portant to  consider  this  apart  for  a  moment,  and  to  show  it  as 
an  outward  symbol  of  a  deep-seated  and  far  worse  interior  evil. 
It  was  for  this  reason  we  adduced  this  single  illustration  of  the 
whole  subject.  And  that  the  more  so,  because  it  has  become, 
likewise,  the  great  bane  of  our  age,  and  threatens  really 
modern  society  with  that  social  decomposition  which  would 
inevitably  be  our  lot,  as  it  was  that  of  the  nations  of  antiquity, 
if  Christianity  were  not  always  in  our  midst  to  counteract  the 
mighty  evil.  It  was  foretold  by  some  profound  thinkers  at 
the  very  first  outburst  of  Protestantism,  and  the  terrible  phan- 
tom at  last  stares  us  in  the  face,  so  that  no  one  but  one  reso- 
lutely blind  can  fail  to  recognize  its  features. 

The  "  London  Westminster  Review,"  if  we  may  judge  from 
its  number  of  October,  1873,  does  not  appear  to  share  our 
horror  of  "  individualism."  They  even  consider  it  as  a  Mess- 
ing •  and  would  deprecate  the  "  cohesion  "  produced  by  "  dog- 
matic teaching"  as  an  obstacle,  probably,  to  expansion  of 
thought,  and  to  the  independence  of  the  human  mind.  At 
last  these  gentlemen  are  consistent,  and  proclaim  openly  what 
their  immediate  predecessors  would  have  shrunk  from  recog- 
nizing, that  the  result  of  "modern  thought,"  as  of  "ancient 
polytheism,"  is  to  reduce  mankind  to  "individuals,"  and  to 
throw  the  minds  of  all  into  revolt  and  anarchy.  Would  to 
God  that  the  mass  of  sensible  people  could  perceive  the  ten- 
dency of  this  monstrous  admission  !  We  observe  likewise  that 
the  same  "  advanced  thinkers  "  would  not  find  it  very  reprehen- 
sible if  open  persecution  was  declared  against  such  a  retrograde 
body  of  men  as  the  Catholic  Church  appears  to  be  in  their  eyes. 


GREEK    AXD    LATIN    POETS.  433 

They  consent,  however,  to  be  generous  enough  to  grant  to  the 
Church  the  "  undeserved"  advantage  of  a  liberal  "toleration." 
The  Church  ought  certainly  to  be  thankful  for  such  magnani- 
mous forbearance.  One  reflexion,  nevertheless,  might  open 
their  eyes  to  see  where  true  strength  is  to  be  found.  A*s  they  pro- 
claim openly  "  individualism,"  in  this  number  at  least,  if  not  in 
others,  and  thus  confess  they  are  reduced  to  it ;  and  as  unnum- 
bered multitudes  of  the  Catholic  Church  will  always  form  one 
"  body,"  owing  to  her  "  dogmatic  teaching,"  the  same  Church 
will  always  be  stronger  than  they  are,  abstracting  even  from 
the  promises  of  her  Founder.  Her  faith  will  never  cease  from 
among  men,  even  though  the  number  of  members  should  be 

o  /  o 

reduced  to  something  less  than  her  actual  two  hundred 
millions.  Whilst  the  doctrine  of  the  supporters  of  "  indi- 
vidualism," from  their  own  confession,  and  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  principle  they  advocate,  cannot  ever  be  one  ; 
must  ever  be  multitudinous,  inorganic,  disorderly,  and  weak  ; 
never 'agreeing  with  themselves,  they  must  remain  in  the  state 
of  disconnected  atoms. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 


SUPPLEMENT  ABY. 


I. 


ALL  the  nations  that  have  hitherto  passed  in  review  before 
us  belong  to  the  Aryan  or  Japhetic  and  to  the  Hamitic  races. 
Some  of  these  last,  as  the  Phoenicians,  and  the  whole  Semitic 
branch  of  the  human  family,  have  been  unnoticed,  and  contrib- 
uted nothing  to  our  conclusion.  In  the  absence  of  these,  can 
we  claim  to  have  sustained  our  thesis?  We  think  we  can. 
Because  if  the  history  of  the  best  known  and  most  important 
portions  of  mankind  completely  demonstrates  it,  we  may  fairly 
infer  that  that  of  the  less  important  and  less  known  will  do 
the  same.  Yet  it  will  be  good  to  say  at  least  a  word  on  the 
subject.  We  will,  therefore,  conclude  our  undertaking  with  a 
slight  and  brief  investigation  of  what  is  known  of  this  last- 
named  branch  of  the  human  family.  It  must,  necessarily,  be 
only  slight  and  brief,  because  the  materials  for  investigation  are 
scanty,  and  do  not  supply  us  with  anything  like  the  copious 
and  varied  materials  afforded  by  the  history  of  the  descendants  of 
Japhet  and  Ham.  Yet  we  may,  perhaps,  discover  some  traces, 
even  amongst  the  former,  of  a  religion  originally  monotheistic 
and  pure ;  and  evidence  sufficient  to  support  the  high  proba- 
bility of  our  general  thesis,  that  amongst  them,  too,  as  well  as 
amongst  the  other  races,  it  was  only  in  subsequent  ages  that  it 
degenerated  into  the  mass  of  corruption  which  we  know  sur- 
passed in  horror  the  foul  dissoluteness  of  all  other  idolatries. 

The  chief  of  these  races  are  those  which  have  dwelt  from  time 
immemorial  in  Mesopotamia,  Syria,  Phoenicia,  Palestine,  and 
(436^ 


SUPPLEMEXTAKY.  437 

Arabia.  The  presence  of  the  posterity  of  Abraham — of  the 
true  "people  of  God,"  the  depository  of  the  old  traditions,  and 
the  recipient  of  a  new  revelation,  the  most  enlightened  of  all 
ancient  nations  in  religions  matters — in  the  midst  of  the  most 
superstitious,  idolatrous,  and  morally  impure  of  all  peoples  of 
antiquity,  will  certainly  surprise  us,  and  furnish  us  with  con- 
siderations of  no  common  interest. 

It  seems  very  probable  that  pantheism  and  idolatry  prevailed 
among  those  tribes,  before  it  did  anywhere  else.  And  from 
what  the  traditions  of  Asiatic  nations  tell  us  of  Nimrod,  so 
soon  after  the  dispersion  of  mankind,  the  period  of  pure  wor- 
ship, on  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris,  must  have 
been  of  a  short  duration ;  and  thus  our  task  becomes  serious 
and  difficult.  Yet  we  do  not  think  it  is  hopeless. 

It  will  assist  the  object  we  have  in  view,  to  consider  briefly 
the  mythology  of  those  races  and  try  to  discover  if  there  is 
any  similarity  or  analogy  between  them ;  as  we  found  it  to  be 
the  case  between  the  Hindoos,  the  Bactrians,  the  Egyptians, 
and  the  Greeks.  And  here  we  are  met  at  the  outset  with  a 
striking  fact,  namely,  that  their  polytheistic  system — when 
they  reached  polytheism — appears  to  be  copied  from  a  common 
pattern,  and  must  have  come  originally  from  the  same  source. 
The  religion  of  the  Chaldseans,  Assyrians,  Babylonians*  Syrians, 
and  Phoenicians,  such  as  it  was  at  the  time  of  their  splendor, 
had  common  traits  which  argued  clearly  the  same  origin.  There 
exists  a  serious  difficulty  with  regard  to  the  primitive  religion 
of  the  Arabians,  of  which  we  shall  have  to  speak.  Yet  the 
few  Arabic  inscriptions  which  have  been  preserved  from  those 
ancient  times,  seem  to  point  to  the  same  conclusion. 

The  small  influence  which  the  pure  and  perfect  monotheism 
of  the  Jews  obtained  over  those  anciently  civilized,  but  ex- 
tremely corrupt,  nations,  must  ever  be  a  subject  of  wonder.  Yet, 
we  believe  we  shall  be  able  to  ascertain  a  real  action  of  the 
kind  more  effective  than  is  generally  supposed. 


438  GENTILISM. 


II. 


The  most  ancient  of  the  Semitic  peoples  were  certainly  the 
Chaldeans,  who,  at  least,  were  first  thought  to  belong  to 
the  Semitic  stock.  Sir  George  Rawlinson,  in  his  "  First  Mon- 
narchy,"  has,  we  believe,  sufficiently,  proved  that  they  were 
Chushites,  and  consequently  the  posterity  of  Ham.  Their  race 
spread  itself  not  only  in  Southern  Mesopotamia,  and  around  the 
head  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  but  also  all  through  Southern  Persia, 
as  far  as  the  Indus ;  but  the  Empire  of  Chaldsea  embraced  only 
the  countries  along  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris  southward, 
and  at  the  head  of  the  Persian  Gulf.  Nimrod,  the  mighty 
hunter  before  the  Lord,  was  the  founder  of  this  monarchy,  and 
the  first  of  the  Babylonian  kings.  This  goes  back  to  the  23d 
or  24th  century  before  Christ,  and  history  does  not  penetrate 
further.  A  large  empire  was  thus  early  founded ;  and  it  must 
have  been  on  the  ruins  of  clans.  'Consequently,  neither  in 
Southern  Mesopotamia,  in  Assyria,  nor  even  in  Syria  and  Phoa- 
nicia,  do  we  see,  in  the  highest  antiquity,  the  primitive  simple 
manners  of  septs  and  tribes ;  and  this  constitutes  an  exception 
to  the  history  of  all  other  ancient  countries.  Yet  to  protest,  as 
it  w-ere,  against  the  establishment  of  a  cruel  despotism,  patri- 
archal manners  remained  'firmly  rooted  amongst  the  posterity  of 
Abraham  in  Palestine,  a  great  part  of  south-western  Chaldsea 
proper,  and  in  the  whole  immense  peninsula  of  Arabia,  where 
it  still  prevails. 

But,  apart  from  these  general  considerations,  we  must  ex- 
amine briefly  the  primitive  Chaldaean  religion. 

Sir  George  Rawlinson  says  (page  110,  and  sec.  9),  that 
"  From  the  earliest  times  to  which  the  monuments  carry  us 
back,  it  was,  in  its  outward  aspect,  a  polytheism  of  a  very  elabo- 
rate character."  But  he  tells  us  likewise  that  "  the  subject  is 
but  partially  worked  out  by  cuneiform  scholars ;  the  difficulties 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  439 

in  the  way  of  understanding  it  are  great ;  and  in  many  portions 
to  which  special  attention  has  been  paid,  it  is  strangely  per- 
plexing and  bewildering."  The  meaning  evidently  is  that  the 
"  polytheism  "  itself  is  extremely  obscure,  and  nothing  certain 
can  yet  be  said  of  it. 

But,  in  coming  to  page  112,  the  same,  learned  writer  begins 
the  grouping  of  the  principal  Chaldaean  deities  as  follows :  "  At 
the  head  of  the  Pantheon  stands  a  god,  II  or  Ra,  of  whom  but 
little  is  known."  Then  Mr.  Rawlinsou  enumerates  Triad  after 
Triad  "  better  known,"  we  suppose,  because  the  Supreme  God 
having  been  early  forgotten  and  set  aside,  the  false  gods  set  up 
in  His  place  became  in  course  of  time  the  only  divinities  of  the 
nation  who  consequently  knew  them  alone. 

The  important  question  for  us,  therafore,  is  to  consider  who 
is  that  II  or  Ra  ?  And  we  are  prompted  to  ask  it  precisely 
because  He  is  "  little  known."  We  must  first  discard  the  name 
JRa,  for  this  very  reason,  that  Sir  G.  Rawlinson  (page  114) 
states  "  that  it  represents  probably  the  native  Chaldaean  name 
of  this  deity,  while  77  is  the  Semitic  •  equivalent.  The  Chal- 
dseans  were  not  Semites — the  very  erudite  author  of  the  "  Five 
Monarchies  "  is  fully  persuaded  of  it — yet,  on  their  monuments 
the  name  of  their  first  god  is  H  (a  Semitic  expression),  as  often 
surely,  and  perhaps  oftener — we  have  no  means  of  ascertain- 
ing it — than  Ra,  the  Chaldaean  word.  What  does  it  mean  ?  In 
our  opinion  this  surely  :  that  the  idolatrous  Chushites  of  Chal- 
daea  had  retained  a  single  golden  thread  of  the  primitive  tradi- 
tions better  preserved  by  their  brethren  of  the  Semitic  ra«e, 
and  this  thread  was  the  true  nams  of  God,  to  which  they  tried 
to  find  an  equivalent  in  their  language,  and  so  they  called  Him 
Ra.  But  for  us,  as  we  said  previously,  the  word  11  -is  of  ex- 
treme importance,  and  we  shall  soon  be  convinced  of  it. 

"  II,  of  course,"  says  Rawlinson,  "  is  but  a  variant  of  El, 
the  root  of  the  well-known  Biblical  Elohim,  as  well  as  of  the 
Arabic  Allah.  It  is  this  name  which  Diodoras  represents 


440  GENTILISM. 

under  the  form  of  Elus  ('HAog),  and  Sanchoniaton,  or  rather 
Philo-Byblius,  under  that  of  Ilus  (TZAof).  The  meaning  of  the 
word  is  simply  '  God,'  or,  perhaps,  *  the  god '  emphatically. 
Jta,  the  Chushite  equivalent,  must  be  considered  to  have  had 

the  same  force  originally It  formed  an  element  in  the 

native  name  of  Babylon,  which  was  Ka-ra,  the  Chushite  equiv- 
alent of  the  Semitic  .Bab-il,  an  expression  signifying  '  the  gate 
of  God.' " 

In  these  few  words,  Sir  G.  Rawlinson  has  satisfactorily 
proved  that,  originally,  the  Chaldseans  were  monotheists ;  and 
as  he  is  certainly  an  unexceptionable  witness,  we  rest  satisfied 
with  his  testimony,  and  pass  on.  For  we  do  not  intend  to  en- 
ter into  an  examination  of  the  abominable  naturalism  which 
soon  became  prevalent  at  Babylon,  although  it  would  be  a 
striking  example  of  a  rapid  degeneracy,  more  rapid  certainly 
than  among  any  other  people  of  antiquity. 

The  next  nation  coming  under  our  observation  is  the  As- 
syrian, comprised  likewise  in  the  Chaldsean  Empire,  having  a 
mythology  in  appearance  somewhat  different  from  that  of 
Chaldsea,  yet,  in  fact,  almost  identical.  Mr.  F.  Lenormant 
("Ancient  History  of  the  East,"  torn.  i.,'p.  462)  will  tell  us  in  a 
fe<v  words  in  what  it  consisted :  "  The  skilful  explorations  of 
the  last  twenty-five  years  in  the  countries  bordering  on  the 
Tigris  and  Euphrates,  have  given  us  much  more  correct  ideas 
on  the  subject  of  the  Assyro-Babylonian  mythology  than  had 
been  handed  down  by  the  Greeks.  Nevertheless  many  points 
still  remain  in  obscurity  as  to  the  religion  common,  with  a  few 
exceptions,  to  the  two  great  Semitic  cities  of  Mesopotamia. 
....  When  we  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  of  gross  polythe- 
ism it  had  acquired  from  popular  superstition,  and  revert  to 
the  original  and  higher  conceptions,  we  shall  find  the  whole 
based  on  the  idea  of  the  unity  of  the  Deity,  the  last  relic  of 
the  primitive  revelation,  disfigured  by  and  lost  in  the  mon- 
strous ideas  of  pantheism 


SUPPLEMENT  AEY.  441 

"  The  Supreme  God,  the  first  and  sole  principle  from  whom 
all  other  deities  were  derived,  was  Ilu,  whose  name  signifies 
God  by  excellence.  Their  idea  of  Him  was  too  comprehensive, 
too  vast,  to  have  any  determined,  external  form,  or,  conse- 
quently, to  receive  in  general  the  adoration  of  the  people 

At  Nineveh,  and  generally  throughout  Assyria,  He  received 
the  peculiar  national  name  of  Asshur  (whence  was  derived  the 
name  of  the  country,  Mat  Asshur) ;  and  this  itself  seems 
derived  from  the  Aryan  name  of  the  Supreme  Deity,  Asura. 
"With  this  title  He  was  the  great  God  of  the  land,  the  especial 
protector  of  the  Assyrians,  and  gave  victory  to  their  arms. 
The  inscriptions  designate  Him  as  '  Master,  or  Chief  of  the 
Gods.' " 

Mr.  F.  Lenormant  may  be  mistaken  in  the  derivation  of 
the  name.  That  of  the  Supreme  God  in  Central  Asia  was 
Ahura,  not  Asura,  although  we  think  that  occasionally  Asura 
is  used.  But  what  is  fatal  to  such  a  derivation,  is  that  there  is 
Ashur,  or  Assur,  a  man  certainly  who,  according  to  Genesis 
(x.  11),  "  sedificavit  Kiniven,  et  plateas  civitatis,  et  Chale." 
But  whatever  may  have  been  the  real  derivation  of  the  word 
Asslmr,  its  identification  with  Ilu  or  II,  the  Supreme  God  of 
the  Chaldaeans,  appears  certain.  The  two  mythologies  of 
Chaldaea  and  Assyria  were  almost  identical ;  they  were  com- 
posed of  the  same  Triads  almost,  and  each  Triad  originated 
almost  identical  deities,  etc. ;  the  starting-point  of  the  two  sys- 
tems must  have  been  the  same,  and  thus  Asshur  was  certainly 
the  same  as  II. 

Rawlinson  admits  that  "  each  of  the  systems  ....  com- 
mences with  the  same  pre-eminence  of  a  single  deity ;  which 
is  followed  by  the  same  groupings  of  identically  the  same 
divinities ;  and,  after  that,  by  a  multitudinous  polytheism, 
which  is  chiefly  of  a  local  character." 

According  to  the  same  distinguished  author,  the  usual 
titles  of  Asshur  are  "  the  great  Lord,"  "  the  King  of  all  the 


442  GENTILISM. 

Gods,"  ''  He  who  rules  supreme  over  the  Gods."  ....  "  His 

place  is  always  first  in  invocations He  places  the  mon- 

archs  upon  their  thrones,  etc.,  etc."  We  wonder,  after  this^ 
at  his  assertion  that  this  religious  system  was  "  without  any 
real  monotheism."  "We  wonder  particularly  at  the  reason  he 
gives  for  it  in  a  note.  "  Though  II  in  Chaldaea,"  he  says, 
"  and  Asshur  in  Assyria,  were  respectively  chief  gods ;  they 
were  in  no  sense  sole  gods.  Not  only  are  the  other  deities 
viewed  as  really  distinct  beings,  but  they  are,  in  many 
cases,  self -originated,  and  always  supreme  in  their  several 
spheres." 

This  certainly  was  the  case  in  after  ages,  subsequently  to  the 
corruption  of  the  primitive  religion.  Eut  the  immenss  dis- 
tance which  always  in  Chaldaea  and  Assyria  separated  II  and 
Asshur  on  one  side,  from  the  gods  on  the  other,  shows  that 
evidently,  in  primitive  times,  these  were  far  inferior  gods  ;  not 
self -originated,  but  created ;  not  supreme,  but  delegated,  as  our 
Angels  and  Archangels.  Their  distinctness  from  the  Supreme 
Being,  recognized  by  Rawlinson,  proves,  at  least,  that  there 
was  originally  no  pantheism  ;  and  thus  the  very  words  of  the 
author  of  the  "  Five  Monarchies "  are  so  many  proofs  of  our 
conclusions. 

Passing  on  to  Phoenicia  and  Palestine,  inhabited  originally 
by  the  Canaanites,  and  remembering  that  both  peoples  belonged 
to  the  same  race  and  were  Hamites,  we  are  struck  by  the 
remarkable  fact  that  their  religion  —  which  was,  perhaps,  th3 
most  corrupt  and  barbarous  of  all  ancient  religions — had  evi- 
dently a  monotheistic  origin,  even  more  clearly  than  that  of 
Chaldsea  and  Assyria.  For  besides  Moloch,  and  Baal,  and  the 
other  demons  to  whom  they  sacrificed  human  beings  with  the 
most  atrocious  rites,  they  admitted,  over  and  far  above  these 
infernal  deities,  a  Superior  Being,  called  by  them  some- 
timeb  El,  "  the  God,"  and  occasionally  look,  "  the  being," 
"  ths  eternal ; "  both  names  absolutely  the  same  with  those  of 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  443 

Elohiin  and  Jehovah,  the  God  of  the  Bible,  the  true  and 
supreme  God  of  Jews  and  Christians. 

It  is  true  that,  according  to  Mr.  F.  Lenormant,  these  two 
appellations  "  were  of  a  mysterious  character,  arid  rarely  used ; 
the  usual  name,  and  the  one  generally  employed  was  Baal, 
'  the  lord.' ':  But  this  mystery  about  the  name  of  the  true  God 
was  a  universal  fact  among  all  other  nations  of  antiquity  ;  and 
we  know  that  the  Jews  themselves  never  dared  to  pronounse 
the  "ineffable"  name,  "  Jehovah." 

There  is  only  a  word  to  add  on  Arabia  and  the  Arabs,  whose 
real  religion  in  ancient  times  has  been,  until  our  days,  almost  en- 
tirely unknown.  Few  researches  have  yet  been  made  to  throw 
light  on  the  subject,  on  account  of  the  almost  absolute  impossibili- 
ty of  penetrating  the  country,  and  the  entire  absence  of  monu- 
ments, except  in  the  mountains  of  the  north  bordering  on 
Syria  and  Mesopotamia.  The  late  investigations  of  Comte  de 
Vogue,  however,  have  iirst,  now  in  our  own  days,  begun  to 
penetrate  the  thick  darkness  which  obscures  the  religious  state 
of  this  country  in  ancient  times  ;  and  all  the  discoveries  made 
so  far  establish  an  almost  literal  identity  of  it  with  Syria  and 
Chaldsea.  This  seems  to  be  true,  not  only  of  Arabia  Petraea, 
but  even  of  the  Hedjaz  and  Yemen.  Al  or  El  in  Arabia  Pe- 
treea,  Allah  in  Hedjaz,  and  Hu  or  H  in  Yemen,  was,  in  the 
highest  antiquity  that  we  can  reach,  the  name  of  God  in  the 
three  great  divisions  of  the  peninsula ;  and  in  many  parts  of  it 
the  religious  polytheist  system  which  followed  the  first  mono- 
theistic epoch,  bears  a  close  analogy  with  that  of  Chaldasa  and 
Syria.  This  short  sketch  must  suffice  in  the  incipient  stage  of 
our  knowledge  on  the  subject.  But  the  testimony  of  all  those 
countries  is  so  alike,  indeed  unanimous,  that  it  is  not  possible 
that  subsequent  discoveries  should  change  substantially  the 
result.  It  is  more  probable  that  they  will  serve  only  to  confirm 
the  previous  conclusions,  and  carry  them  finally  to  a  complete 
demonstration. 


444  GENTILISM. 

After  this  compendious  account  of  the  primitive  religion  of 
all  the  countries  we  now  examine,  and  which  form  so  distinct 
a  group,  different  in  appearance  from  that  of  Aryan  nations, 
yet  identical  in  the  conclusions  resulting  from  it,  we  shall  be 
better  able  to  appreciate  the  observations  of  Max  Miiller 
on  the  same  subject,  as  they  are  given  in  his  "  Lectures  on  the 
Science  of  Religion." 

"  The  Semitic  languages,  like  the  Aryan,  possess  a  number  of 
names  of  the  Deity  in  common."  Mr.  Muller,  we  think,  classi- 
fies the  Phoenicians  with  the  Semites — "  which  must  have 
existed  before  the  Southern  or  Arabic,  the  Northern  or  Ara- 
maic, the  Middle  or  Hebraic  branches  became  permanently 
separated,  and  which,  therefore,  allow  us  an  insight  into  the 
religious  conceptions  of  the  once  united  Semitic  race,  long  be- 
fore Jehovah  was  worshipped  by  Abraham,  or  Baal  was  invok- 
ed in  Phoenicia,  or  Bel  in  Babylon."  Then  follows  a  long 
dissertation  on  those  various  names  of  God,  which  Mr.  Muller 
concludes  in  these  words :  "  Whether  we  include  or  exclude 
the  name  of  Jehovah " — we  do  positively  exclude  it  for  the 
present — "  we  have,  I  think,  sufficient  witnesses  to  establish 
what  we  wished  to  establish,  namely,  that  there  was  a  period 
during  which  the  ancestors  of  the  Semitic  family  had  not  yet 
been  divided,  whether  in  language  or  in  religion.  That  period 
transcends  the  recollection  of  every  one  of  the  Semitic  races 
in  the  same  way  as  neither  Hindoos,  Greeks,  nor  Romans  have 
any  recollection  of  the  time  when  they  spoke  a  common  lan- 
guage, and  worshipped  their  Father  in  heaven  by  a  name  that 
was  as  yet  neither  Sanscrit,  nor  Greek,  nor  Latin.  But  I  do 
not  hesitate  to  call  this  prehistoric  period  historical  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word.  It  was  a- real  period,  because  unless  it  was 
real,  all  the  realities  of  the  Semitic  languages,  and  the  Semitic 
religions,  such  as  we  find  them  after  their  separation,  would  be 
unintelligible.  Hebrew,  Syriac,  and  Arabic  point  to  a  common 
source,  as  much  as  Sanscrit,  Greek,  and  Latin ;  and  unless  we 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  445 

can  bring  ourselves  to  doubt  that  the  Hindoos,  the  Greeks,  the 
Romans,  and  the  Teutons  derived  the  -worship  of  their  prin- 
cipal deity  from  their  common  Aryan  sanctuary,  W3  shall  not 
be  able  to  deny  that  there  was  likewise  a  primitive  religion  of 
the  whole  Semitic  race,  and  that  EL,  *  the  strong  one  in  Heaven,' 
was  invoked  by  the  ancestors  of  all  the  Semitic  races,  before 
there  were  Babylonians  in  Babylon,  Pho3iiicians  in  Sidon  and 
Tyre,  before  there  were  Jews  in  Mesopotamia  or  Jerusalem. 
The  evidence  of  the  Semitic  is  the  same  as  that  of  the  Aryan 
languages ;  the  conclusion  cannot  be  different."  The  deduction 
from  all  these  considerations  is  clear,  and  no  further  discovery 
can  shake  it. 


III. 


But  we  have  excluded  the  Hebrew  evidence  for  several 
strong  reasons.  First,  it  is  an  evidence  quite  apart  from  all 
the  others ;  it  stands  by  itself ;  inasmuch  as  that  people  were, 
throughout  their  history,  under  the  direct  action  of  divine 
Providence,  who  guided  them,  chastised  them,  or  rewarded 
them ;  governed  them,  in  short,  as  their  king  and  ruler.  The 
Jewish  people,  consequently,  can  be  compared  to  no  other. 
Their  national  history  has  a  special  significance  of  its  own ; 
and  remains  always  far  above  as  it  is  essentially  different  from 
all  other  facts  of  history. 

Secondly,  it  looks  like  desecration  to  rank  the  Mosaic  relig- 
ion amongst  the  other  cults  of  antiquity,  because  they  all  soon 
became  so  corrupt  as  to  provoke  the  abhorrence  of  every  one 
of  only  decent  propriety  of  morals.  Especially  is  this  true  of 
those  of  Chaldaea,  Syria,  and  Phoanicia,  whose  degrading  rites 
must  be  ascribed  to  the  direct  influence  of  the  Evil  one.  To 
state,  without  a  clear  explanation,  that  the  God  of  the  Jews 
was  the  same,  originally,  as  the  god  of  the  Tynans,  might  lead 
the  unwary  to  imagine  that  all  religions  are  alike,  and  d(  serve 


446  GENTILISM. 

the  like  commendation  from  all.  Nothing  could  be  further 
from  the  thought  of  a  Christian. 

Thirdly,  the  constant  distinctness  of  the  pure  monotheistic 
idea  among  the  Jews,  during  so  many  ages  of  their  national 
existence,  was  positively  intended  by  Almighty  God  as  a  per- 
manent protest  against  the  corrupt  worship  and  abominable 
rites  of  all  the  surrounding  nations,  sunk,  during  all  that  time, 
in  the  mire  of  a  devilish  idolatry ;  and  we  have  the  whole  of 
the  Old  Testament  for  vouchers  of  this  assertion. 

It  is  proper,  therefore,  to  consider  alone,  and  apart  from  all 
other  religions,  'the  grand  individuality  of  the  Mosaic  theology, 
at  least  with  respect  to  the  belief  in  one  God,  as  the  typical 
form  which  all  cults  would  have  assumed  if  they  had  not  de- 
viated from  their  original  purity ;  and  these  considerations  will 
appropriately  close  our  protracted  investigations  on  the  subject 
of  Gentilism. 

And  first,  the  name  given  to  Almighty  God  in  the  Bible  is 
the  most  exact,  the  least  subject  to  •  false  interpretations,  the 
completest  in  every  respect,  that  can  be  imagined ;  we  mean 
the  tetragra/mmaton.  It  is  true  that,  besides  this  ineffable 
name,  there  were,  according  to  St.  Jerome  (Epist.  136,  ad  Mar- 
cellam),  quoted  by  Corn,  a  Lapide  (Ex.  vi.,)  ten  other  appella- 
tions to  denominate  God.  And  it  is  remarkable  that  those 
various  names  of  the  Deity  never  became,  among  the  Jews,  an 
occasion  of  idolatry,  as  was  certainly  the  case  among  other 
nations,  whose  polytheism  was  often  the  result  of  the  different 
terms  used  to  express  their  idea  of  the  divine  nature.  The 
reason  was  probably  the  pre-eminence  in  Judea  of  that  other 
name  which  the  Israelites  knew  expressed  most  perfectly  the 
essence  of  the  Deity.  Numbers  of  dissertations  have  been  writ- 
ten on  it.  We  will  merely  refer  to  two  involved  in  them :  The 
four  letters  composing  it  arejod,  he,  vau,  saidjod.  Many  see  in 
their  combination  the  meaning  of  the  latin  words :  Qui  erat,  est, 
et  crit  /  and  among  other  reasons,  bring  forward  the  passage 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  447 

of  the  Apocalypse,  where  God  is  said  to  be :  Qui  erat,  qui  est, 
•  et  qui  venturus  est.  We  know  that  in  Ilindostan  and  Egypt 
the  knowledge  of  this  attribute  of  the  Supreme  Being  led  the 
people  to  believe  that  not  only  He  included  in  His  essence  all 
times,  but  likewise  all  things;  and  thus  it  became  a  fertile 
cause  of  pantheism  among  them.  Yet,  as  believed  in  by  ths 
Jews,  nothing  of  the  kind  ever  happened.  Even  this  meaning, 
therefore,  proved  harmless  in  Judea.  But  the  greatest  number 
of  Catholic  exegetists  understand  the  tetragrammaton  very  dif- 
ferently. Cornelius  a  Lapide,  who  refers  to  them  at  length  (in 
Exodum),  and  likewise  (in  Apocalypsim)  shows  that  the  real 
meaning,  is  simply  Qui  est,  indicating  the  self -existence  of 
God,  and  showing  Him  to  be  the  First  Cause  of  all  things ;  and 
he  concludes  a  long  dissertation  by  these  remarkable  words : 
"Dico  hoc  nomen  tetragrammaton  Jeheva" — thus  he  spells  it 
— "  significare  essentiam  Dei,  ipsam  que  essentiag  divinge  abys- 
suin,  et  pelagus  immensum ;  hoc  enirn  significat  nomen  qui  est." 
In  a  second  place,  it  is  easy  to  prove  that  from  this  name  of 
God  all  the  divine  attributes  strictly  follow.  The  unity  of  es- 
sence is  certainly  included  in  it,  since  the  reality  of  being  be- 
longing only  to  God,  if  a  second  God,  different  from  the  first, 
possessed  it,  the  other  could  not  be  said  to  have  it  entire,  and 
consequently  in  a  god-like  manner,  that  is  fo  say,  to  have  it  at 
all.  It  follows  likewise,  from  it,  that  God  must  be  all-perfect, 
most  simple,  infinite,  independent,  immutable,  eternal,  omnipo- 
tent, the  Cause  of  all  things  which  exist,  which  shall  exist, 
which  are  possible,  etc.,  etc.  Never  any  name  so  comprehen- 
sive, exact,  complete,  has  been  given  to  the  Supreme  Being  by 
the  religious  belief  of  any  other  people. 

But  among  the  Jews  the  unity  of  God  was  especially  insisted 
on,  because;  when  once  its  sacredness  was.  in  the  least  infringed 
upon,  immediately  the  flood  of  polytheism,  to  which  all  nations 
were  so  powerfully  inclined,  broke  through  and  brought  with 

it  the  most  devastating  errors  and  delusions.     Thus  it  was  not 
30 


448  GENTILISM. 

only  tliis  divine  name  which  kept  th3  Jews  from  idolatry,  but 
also  to  render  its  effect  more  sure,  the  great  and  terrible  voice 
heard  from  Mount  Sinai  proclaiming  the  divine  law,  amidst 
thunder  and  lightning :  "  Non  Jidbebis  deos  alienos  coram  me. 
Non  fades  tibi  sculptile  ....  Non  advrabis  ea  neque  coles : 
Ego  sum  Dominus  tuus  fortis^Zelotes,  etc" 

Thus  was  polytheism  most  effectually  warded  off.  But 
how  is  it  that  the  Jews,  so  often  inclined  to  pure  idolatry,  never 
showed  the  least  tendency  to  pantheism,  which  was  everywhere 
else  the  beginning  of  error  ?  The  reason  is  plain :  From  the 
very  fir&t  page  of  their  sacred  books,  and  from  so  many  utter- 
ances of  their  prophets  and  wise  men,  they  knew  that  He  was 
the  Creator  in  the  very  sense  we  attach  to  the  word.  The 
error  of  emanation  could  not  occur  even  to  their  mind,  after 
having  been  distinctly  taught  how  the  visible  world  had  come 
into  existence.  It  was  not  in  a  state  of  unconsciousness,  and 
during  sleep,  that  the  author  of  ah1  things  had  generated  the 
exterior  world,  as  the  writers  of  the  Yedas  and  of  the  Hermetic 
books  had  dreamed.  It  was  in  all  the  majesty  of  the  Godhead 
that  He  had  uttered  His  great  Fiat;  and  His  creation,  although 
immense,  brilliant,  apparently  without  limits,  was  to  remain 
for  ever  not  only  distinct  from,  but  infinitely  below,  Him. 

We  begin  already  to  understand  how  the  monotheism  of  the 
Jews  differed  from  that  of  the  Hindoos  and  the  Egyptians. 
How  much  more  profoundly  would  this  phenomenon  impress 
us  could  we  go  thi  ough  all  the  effusions  of  the  truly  inspired 
writers  of  that  sublime  book  we  call  the  Bible.  Could  we 
bring  forward  ah1  the  texts  in  which  the  holiness  of  the  Lord 
is  proclaimed,  together  with  His  providence,  His  love  for  man, 
requiring  love  in  return ;  and  asking  in  positive  terms  to  be 
loved  by  His  intelligent  creatures !  The  guardianship  of  the 
dogmas  was  thus  given  over  to  the  sacredness  of  love  ;  and  man 
felt  the  necessity  of  never  deviating  from  truth  in  his  worship, 
precisely  because  he  was  bound  to  love  Him,  and  could  not  des-  * 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  449 

pise  the  One  he  loved,  by  communicating  His  attributes  to  any- 
other.  "Dili yes  Dominum  Deum  tuum  ex  toto  corde  tuo,  et 
ex  tota  anima  tua,  et  ex  tota  fortitudine  tua "  (Deut.  vi.,  5). 
No  other  religious  code  ever  spoke  with  that  plainness  and 
pointedness ;  although  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  thought  the 
Egyptians  were  enjoined  the  same  kind  of  worship  through 
love,  and  expressed  it  by  giving  to  the  Sphinx  the  face  of  a 
woman.  Supposing  his  interpretation  true  —  which  in  our 
opinion  is  very  problematical — is  it  possible  to  place  both  proc- 
lamations of  the  same  divine  law  on  the  same  footing  ?  Yet 
the  Mosaic  dispensation  was  designed  rather  to  inspire  fear  than 
promote  love.  And  this  is  chiefly  visible  in  the  thirty-second 
chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  which  is  full  of  threats,  and  foretells 
to  the  Jewish  people  the  most  fearful  evils  as  the  punishment 
of  any  future  rebellion  and  idolatry.  In  the  same  chapter, 
however,  what  a  picture  of  the  tender 'predilection  of  God  for 
his  "  people  !"  "Ihvenit  eum  in  terra  deserta,  in  loco  horroris 
et  va#t<j&  solitudinis :  circumd uxit  eum  et  docuit  /  et  custodivit 
quasi  pupillam  oculi  sui.  Sicut  aquila  provooans  ad  volan- 
dum  pullos  suos,  et  super  eos  volitans,  expandit  alas  suas,  et 
assumpsit  eum,  atque  portavit  in  humeris  suis,  Dominus  solus 
dux  ejus  fuit,  et  non  erat  cum  eo  Deus  alienus."  These  were 
the  noble  and  love-breathing  ideas  which  the  true  religion  gave 
to  the  Jews  of  the  God  they  were  to  worship.  The  sublime 
mission  of  Moses  in  announcing  them,  proclaiming  them,  and 
giving  them  their  sanction,  shows  itself  infinitely  superior  to 
the  self-imposed  task  of  those  Hindoo  rishis,  the  authors  of  the 
finest  upanishads  of  the  Yedas.  This  fact  alone  affords  confirm- 
atory evidence  that  his  authority  could  only  have  been  de- 
rived but  from  God.  It  is  this  which  places  the  Hebrew  mo- 
notheism far  above  the  purest  belief  of  other  nations,  unless 
we  go  back  to  their  very  origin,  of  which  we  have  no  certain 
record,  when  they  received  it  from  God  himself  speaking  to 
Noah  and  his  children. 


450  G 

But  it  is  time  we  chould  try  to  discover  tlie  influents  of  this 
sublime  doctrine  on  surrounding  nations.  This  requires  of  us 
to  examine  the  relations  the  Jews  had ;  •  1st.  With  the  great 
nations  of  antiquity ;  2d.  With  their  immediate  neighbors  in 
Palestine  and  Syria ;  and  we  shall  find  that  this  influence  was 
far  greater  than  is  generally  imagined. 

I.  It  is  remarkable  that,  throughout  the  time  of  their  long  his- 
tory, the  Jews  had  intimate  relations  with  the  various  peoples 
who  had  successfully  swayed  the  destinies  of  mankind,  namely, 
with  the  Assyrians  and  Chaldeeans,  the  Egyptians,  the  Persians, 
the  Greeks,  and  the  Romans ;  relations  of  social  and  religious 

t  f  O 

intercourse,  of  war,  of  alliances,  of  commerce  even  and  inter- 
change of  commodities.  Of  no  other  nation  of  antiquity  can 
the  same  be  said  to  the  same  extent.  In  the  Old  Testament 
we  see  all  these  complications  of  interests  between  Israel  and 
the  Gentiles  brought  forward,  sometimes  mentioned  briefly, 
occasionally  with  many  details.  This  testimony  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture has  often  been  derided,  and  the  "  people  of  God "  have 
been  contemptuously  represented  as  an  insignificant,  rude,  and 
almost  barbarous  tribe.  It  has,  however,  been  amply  vindi- 
cated, in  these  days,  of  inquiiy,  by  the  learned  men  who  have 
studied  deeply  the  antiquities  of  Assyria,  Chaldsea,  Egypt,  Per- 
sia, Greece,  and  Rome.  The  Jews  cannot  be  any  more  treated 
with  ridicule,  and  their  sacred  books  ignored  or  disowned,  after 
the  labors  of  so  many  interpreters  of  cuneiform  inscriptions, 
and  hieroglyphic  or  demotic  papyri  as  well  as  of  classical 
writers. 

But,  at  first  sight,  it  seems  that  this  long-continued  inter- 
course of  the  Israelites  witrj,  the  various  Gentile  empires  or  re- 
publics, had  very  little  influence  on  the  religious  thoughts  of 
these  foreign  nations.  The  universal  flood  of  idolatry  and 
superstition  does  not  seem  to  have  been  checked  in  the  least  by  all 
the  sublime  truths  revealed  in  the  books" of  the  Old  Testament. 
We  do'  not  hear  of  a  single  village  having  renounced  its  gods, 


PPLEMEXTAEY.  .  451 

to  embrace  the  worship  of  the  Supreme  and  Sole  God  of 
the  Jews.  "When  Xaanian,  the  Syrian,  converted  by  his  mira- 
culous cure,  embraced  Judaism  and  became  a  proselyte,  he  did 
not  appear  to  hope  that  he  could  bring  any  of  his  nation  to  the 
IG  belief;  and  he  merely  asked  of  the  prophet,  if  he  could 
in  conscience  accompany  his  master  to  an  idolatrous  temple, 
whenever  requested  to  do  so  as  a  requirement  of  his  office. 
"When  the  Moabite  Ruth  consented  to  renounce  Chamos  of 
Moab,  to  adore  the  God  of  Noemi,  she  did  not  speak  of  trying 
to  bring  to  her  new  religion  any  of  her  former  friends  and  fel- 
low-idolaters. 

Yet  we  cannot  supposs  that  the  pre3en2e  of  the  Jews  in  the 
midst  of  so  many  Gentile  peoples,  during  so  many  ages,  had  no 
influence  whatever  in  checking  idolatry,  and  inspiring  many 
men  with  the  thought  of  a  holier  belief  and  a  purer  morality. 
"We  might  take,  for  example,  at  the  very  outeet,  the  instance 
of  the  patriarch  of  the  nation,  Abraham,  and  show  what  in- 
fluence he  must  have  had  not  only  in  Chaldaea,  where  he  was 
born,  not  only  in  Mesopotamia,  where  he  spent  the  greatest , 
part  of  his  life,  but  likewise  in  Egypt,  where  he  travelled,  and 
became  intimately  acquainted  with  the  Pharaoh  himself.  Much 
might  be  written  on  the  wonderful  story  of  Joseph  in  Egypt. 
But  a  most  remarkable  fact,  long  subsequent  to  Abraham,  is 
sufficient  to  correct  in  our  minds  many  false  ideas  on  the  sub- 
ject under  consideration.  It  is  the  preaching  of  Jonah  in 
Nineveh.  The  whole  of  this  strange  narrative  looks,  indeed, 
like  a  primitive  example  of  any  successful  mission  by  a  Catholic 
apostle  even  in  our  modern  times.  Does  not  Jonah  among 
the  Xinevites  appear  like  a  Francis  Xavier  in  Marava  or  in 
Japan  ?  And  can  we  imagine  that  it  was  an  altogether  ex- 
ceptional case,  never  repeated  by  any  other  prophet  or  man 
of  God  ?  The  Old  Bible  does  no  more  contain  everything  that 
happened  in  those  times,  than  the  New  Testament  relates  all 
the  events  of  the  life  of  our  Lord. 


452  GENTILISM. 

The  Assyrian  captivity  of  the  Samaritans  under  Salmanasar, 
is  another  fact  on  which  men  do  not  sufficiently  reflect.  The 
kingdom  of  Israel,  it  is  true,  was  already  in  great  part  idol- 
atrous ;  yet  many  families  preserved  faithfully  the  true  wor- 
ship of  God ;  and  all,  without  exception,  maintained  a  due 
respect  for  the  Pentateuch,  which  certainly  they  carried  with 
them  to  Assyria  and  Media.  The  simple,  idyllic,  and  so  truth- 
ful history  of  Tobias  shows  us  that  the  zeal  for  the  spread  of 
the  true  religion  among  infidels  had  not  altogether  died  out. 
The  words  of  the  holy  man  are  clear  (Tob.  xiii.  4) :  "  Dispersit 
vos  (Deus)  inter  gentes,  quce,  ignorant  eum,  ut  vos  enarretis 
mirabUia  ejus,  etfaciatig  scire  eos,  quia  non  est  alius  Deus  om- 
nipotens  prceter  eum."  What  Tobias  himself  thought,  must 
have  likewise  been  impressed  on  the  minds  of  many  of  his 
countrymen,  of  all  pious  people,  in  fact.  And  can  we  calcu- 
late the  effect  of  so  many  words  of  instruction  and  exhorta- 
tion on  the  pagans  of  Northern  Mesopotamia  and  Armenia  ? 

But  we  see  this  more  clearly  still  in  the  Babylonish  captiv- 
ity; when  not  Samaritans  only,  men  of  the  ten  separated 
tribes,  but  true  Jews  of  the  tribes  of  Judah  and  Benjamin, 
were  transferred  to  Babylon  and  the  neighborhood  of  the ' 
Persian  Gulf.  We  should  have  to  quote  many  prophecies  of 
Ezechiel  and  all  the  history  of  Daniel,  and  allude,  at  least,  to 
the  position  he  occupied  in  the  palace  of  the  king,  to  give  the 
reader  aome  idea  of  the  influence  he  must  have  exerted  on  the 
corrupt  worship  and  the  most  corrupt  manners  of  the  Baby- 
lonians. He  could  not,  certainly,  prevent  the  catastrophe  im- 
pending on  the  dynasties  of  the  second  Chaldaean  Empire.  It 
cannot  be  believed,  however,  that  such  a  powerful  interpreter 
of  the  oracles  of  God  as  Daniel  certainly  was,  did  not  produce 
any  impression  on  the  idolaters  of  Babylon,  since  they  believed 
so  implicitly  his  interpretations,  even  when  contrary  to  all 
their  interests  and  hopes.  • 

But  it  is  chiefly  under  the  Persian  dynasty  which  immedi- 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  453 

ately  succeeded,  that  the  religious  and  moral  influence  of  the 
Jews  appears  pre-eminent.  Cyrus*  edict  for  their  return  to 
Jerusalem  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  temple,  is  the  most 
remarkable  proof  of  it.  Why  is  it  that  not  only  the  great 
founder  of  the  Persian  Empire,  but  all  his  immediate  successors, 
furnished  pecuniary  and  military  aid  for  the  restoration  of 
the  great  edifice,  erected  from  the  beginning,  arid  continuing 
through  ages  as  a  proclamation  to  the  whole  world  of  the 
existence  of  One  only  God,  worshipped  in  one  only  place,  and 
by  unique  rites  and  sacrifices  ?  In  all  the  other  countries 
which  the  Persian  armies  either  annexed  to  Iran  or  devastated 
and  ravaged,  their  first  care  was  to  wage  war  on  religion,  to 
disperse  the  priesthoods,  burn  the  temples,  and  break  to  pieces 
the  idols.  This  Cambyses  did  in  Egypt  and  Xerxes  in  Greece. 
In  Jerusalem  alone  did  they  show  their  respect  for  the  God 
worshipped  within  its  walls.  They  inaugurated  the  great  cus- 
tom continued  afterwards  under  all  the  political  powers  on 
which  Judea  depended  ;  for  after  the  Persians,  the  Macedoni- 
ans, under  the  leadership  of  Alexander,  the  Greek  successors  of 
the  youthful  hero,  the  Romans  even  afterwards  appropriated  a 
yearly  tribute  to  the  ceremonies  and  sacrifices  appointed  by  the 
Mosaic  law  for  the  service  of  the  true  God.  Some  Syrian 
tyrants  alone,  like  Antiochus,  not  only  refused  the  tribute,  but 
proscribed  the  worship,  closed  or  injured  the  edifices,  and  per- 
secuted the  nation.  With  this  single  exception,  it  is  a  very 
strange,  yet  absolutely  undeniable,  fact,  that,  from  the  family 
of  the  Achemenidae  down  to  Pompey,  and,  later,  Titus,  all  the 
various  political  powers  holding  Palestine  under  their  sway 
followed  the  practice  introduced  by  the  Persian  kings,  and 
wished  that  the  true  God  should  be  invoked  in  their  behalf 
every  day,  morning  and  evening,  by  sacrifice  and  prayer.  Can 
a  stronger  -proof  be  given  that  the  true  and  only  revealed 
religion  of  antiquity  possessed  a  great  moral  influence  over  the 
pagan  mind  of  the  period  ?  * 


454  GEXTILIS3I.      • 

Bat  this  is  not  all.  "Whatever  may  have  been  the  circum- 
stances which  brought  about  the  translation  of  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures in  Greek,  it  is  certain  that  the  Septuagint  version  existed 
from  the  fourth  century  before  Christ,  since  the  most  probable 
opinion,  supported  by  St.  Cleine::t  of  Alexandria,  attributes  it 
to  the  care  of  Ptolemy  Lagus,  the  first  king  of  Egypt  after 
Alexander.  The  translation  was  intended  for  the  library  of 
Alexandria,  which  then  became,  we  may  say,  the  intellectual 
centre  of  the  world. '  The  revealed  word  of  God,  containing 
the  principles  of  the  true  religion,  together  with  the  annals  of 
mankind,  and  the  private  records  of  the  Jewish  nation,  then 
became  accessible  to  all,  as  they  were  no  more  hidden  under 
the  Hebrew  text,  which  so  few  could  road,  but  were  exposed 
to  the  knowledge  of  all  in  the  Hellenic  idiom,  the  most  uni- 
versally spread  at  the  time,  and  intelligible  from  the  Atlantic 
Ocean  to  the  confines  of  "India.  Printing,  it  is  true,  could  not 
multiply  the  copies,  yet  we  know  how  extensively  manuscripts 
circulated  among  educated  people. 

We  have  alluded  to  only  a  few  well-known  facts,  in  order  to 
show  that  the  Hebrew  monotheism  must  have  exerted  a  power- 
ful influence  all  over  the  ancient  woild.  We  have  not  been 
able  to  more  than  touch  upon  a  subject  which,  fully  developed, 
would  be  full  of  interest.  It  remains  to  make  a  few  remarks 
on  the  more  direct  action  of  the  true  religion  on  the  people 
immediately  surrounding  the  Jews  in  Palestine. 

II.  It  is  a  truth,  as  curious  as  sad,  that  the  Semitic  race, 
which  was  not  alone  to  keep  the  truth,  and  worship  tlie  only 
God,  but  to  give,  in  fact,  the  Saviour  to  mankind,  went  almost 
altogether  astray  in  the  matters  of  religion  and  morality,  and 
exhibited  the  greatest  debasement  in  worship,  and  the  blindest 
superstition  in  manners  and  customs.  Many  branches  of  tnat 
great  race,  for  which  chiefly  the  Old  Testament  was  written, 
were,  from  a»very  early  age,  addicted  to  all  the  vices  naturally 
fostered  by  the  moe-t  direful  errors.  We  cannot  penetrate  the 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  455 

special  designs  of  Providence  in  placing  the  Jews  in  tin-  midst 
of  Phoenicians,  Canaanites,  and  Syrians,  all  of  them,  at  the 
time,  worshipping,  in  fact,  the  Satanic  powers  under  the  name 
of  gods  and  goddesses,  and  given  ov»r  to  the  most  brutalizing 
immorality  and  superstition.  The  more  the  details  of  that 
abominable  worship  are  studied  and  become  known  through 
the  deep  researches  of  orientalists  in  our  days,  the  more  we 
cease  to  wonder  at  the  mission  clearly  given  to  the  Israelites 
in  the  Pentateuch,  to  destroy  them  if  they  refused  to  give  up 
their  idolatry,  and  to  occupy  a  territory  long  before  promised 
to  Abraham.  AVe  see  the  straggle  fully  described  in  the  Book 
of  Judges  and  in  the  first  of  Kings.  The  sure  key  to  the 
proper  understanding  of  this  part  of  Holy  Scripture  is  the  com- 
parison between  the  gloomy  idolatry  of  the  Canaanites,  and  the 
purity  of  the  Mosaic  religious  law  which  was  to  replace  it  in 
Palestine.  The  Israelites  are  always  defeated  when  they  forget 
the  admonitions  of  the  divine  law,  and  always  successful  when 
they  return  to  it.  The  Canaanites  are  their  enemies  because 
they  are,  by  their  idolatry,  the  enemies  of  the  Lord.  It  is 
throughout  a  religious  conflict  between  the  worship  of  One 
true  God  and  the  impious  rites  of  barbarous  divinities. 

But  after  this  protracted  .straggle,  after  the  short  reign  of 
Saul,  the  first  Jewish  king,  comes  the  long  one  of  David,  who, 
by  many  battles  and  nearly  as  many  victories,  conquered  peace 
at  last,  and  restored  to  his  nation  the  possession  of  a  land  given 
first  to  Abraham,  pointed  out  by  Moses,  conquered  at  first  by 
Joshua,  but,  after  this  first  of  the  Judges,  disputed  a  long  time 
by  many  idolatrous  nations,  until  it  was  at  last,  as  we  have  said, 
conquered  by  David,  who  at  length  bestowed  the  peaceful  pos- 

-ion  of  it  on  his  people.  But  how  ?  If  we  look  to  the  mere 
narrative  of  events,  David  is  simply  a  skilful  and  successful 
general,  who  gains  his  kingly  crown  by  the  greatness  of  his 
mind  and  the  strength  of  his  arm.  But  should  we  stop  at  this 
interpretation  of  his  powerful  individuality,  we  should  not  truly 


456  GEXTILISM. 

understand  it.  The  key  to  his  history  and  to  that  of  his  people 
is  contained  in  his  Psalms.  And  what  do  those  sublime  pro- 
ductions proclaim  ?  The  greatness  of  God  and  the  utter  de- 
pravity of  polytheism.  It  was  impossible  to  denounce  with 
more  power  the  abominable  rites  celebrated  all  around  him; 
impossible  to  assert  more  forcibly  the  success  of  God  against 
Satan  in  his  own  victories.  With  justice  and  conscious  un- 
worthiness  he  exclaimed:  "Non  nobis,  Domine,  non  nobis; 
sed  nomini  tuo  da  gloriam." 

But  it  is  a  fact  that,  when  he  wrote  his  psalms,  and  had  them 
chanted  before  the  tabernacle  by  thousands  of  human  voices, 
the  language  in  which  they  were  written  was  not  intelligible  to 
his  people  alone,  but  to  all  those  veiy  tribes  which  he  had  con- 
quered, over  which  he  had  triumphed.  Could  a  better  way 
have  been  devised  of  impressing  them  with  the  glory  of  the 
God  of  Israel  ?  How  many  idolaters  were  converted  by  those 
sublime  hymns,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining.  But  to 
suppose  that  they  converted  nobody,  and  that  the  surrounding 
idolatry  was  not  influenced  for  good  by  the  circulation  of  those 
divine  melodies,  would  be  to  misunderstand  altogether  human 
nature.  Especially  when  under  the  son  and  successor  of 
David,  the  magnificent  Temple  of  the  true  God  rose  on  the 
hill  of  Sion,  when,  under  its  majestic  architecture,  the  noble 
rites  of  the  only  true  worship  of  the  Deity  performed  on  earth 
were  consummated  in  the  presence  of  so  many  Gentiles,  to 
whom  an  extensive  area  inside  of  the  building  was  assigned, 
who  will  be  bold  enough  to  say  that  no  previous  worshipper  of 
Baal,  no  adorer  of  Melitta,  no  sacrificer  to  Astaroth,  was  im- 
pressed so  as  to  surrender  his  superstition,  and  proclaim  himself 
a  true  proselyte  of  the  divine  law  promulgated  on  mount  Sinai, 
and  given  to  Moses  with  such  awful  solemnity  ? 

But  besides  the  conversion  of  many  individuals,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  degradation  of  polytheism,  such  as  it  was 
practised  previously  in  Palestine,  was  arrested  by  the  presence 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  457 

of  the  faithful  Israelites  in  the  midst  of  the  country,  and  in- 
stead of  sinking  deeper,  and  deeper,  and  deeper,  as  it  did  in 
other  parts  of  the  world,  in  Hindostan,  in  Egypt,  in  Greece, 
the  Syrian  superstitions  were  in  a  great  measure  mitigated  and 
modified  by  the  near  presence  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  the 
constant  spectacle  of  the  solemn  ceremonies  of  a  pure  worship. 

Palestine,  it  is  true,  whatever  may  be  the  cau£e  of  it,  has 
always  been  a  hot-bed  of  errors,  and  a  gloomy  field  of  contend- 
ing superstitions  or  heresies.  It  is  so  even  in  our  time ;  and 
there  is  scarcely  a  spot  on  earth  where,  at  this  moment,  may  be 
seen  more  contention  and  strife  in  religious  matters.  The 
august  presence  of  the  only  true  Temple  of  God,  in  former 
ages  was,  and  the  moving  spectacle  of  the  sepulchre  of  our 
Lord,  in  our  times,  still  is,  unable  to  produce  harmony  among 
men,  and  bring  all  to  be  of  6ne  mind  and  one  heart.  Yet, 
since  our  present  investigations  have  been  limited  to  a  long- 
past  epoch,  what  has  been  urged  will,  we  trust,  go  far  towards 
convincing  the  reader  that  the  Mosaic  monotheism  must  have 
not  been  without  a  great  influence  on  the  surrounding  errors. 

It  is  true,  therefore,  that  divine  Providence  always  left  to 
former  pagan  nations  many  means  of  acknowledging  the  £>u- 
preme  God,  and  of  coming  back  to  Him,  after  having  so  long 
wandered  in  the  labyrinth  of  false  religions.  And  the  Mosaic 
law,  given  only  to  a  small  nation,  was  thus  able  to  serve  to 
many  as  a  means  of  reflection  and  salvation.  We  do 
not  speak  here  of  its  typical  character,  so  remarkable  certainly, 
and  so  well  calculated  to  satisfy  all  the  cravings  of  the  heart 
for  a  future  restoration  of  true  religion  upon  earth ;  cravings  and 
anticipations  which  we  know  did  exist,  and  to  which  many  myths, 
poems,  legends,  or  real  prophecies  bear  witness.  Our  subject 
did  not  admit  of  our  touching,  even,  on  that  most  interesting 
topic.  But  the  little  we  have  said  on  the  monotheism  of  the 
Jews  was  absolutely  required  in  treating  of  what  was  real  in  the 
monotheism  of  the  Gentiles. 


458  GENTILISM. 


IY. 


The  early  documents  of  the  Semitic,  as  well  as  of  the  Aryan 
races,  have  been  proved  to  agree  in  representing  mankind  at 
first  civilized,  monotheistic,  and  morally  pure.  If  the  annals 
of  the  posterity  of  Sem  are  not  so  abundant  and  decisive  as 
those  of  the  children  of  Japhet,  they  have  on  the  other  side  a 
superiority  over  these,  by  embracing  within  their  ethnologic 
precincts  the  wonderful  posterity  of  Abraham.  With  respect 
to  the  Hebrew  people,  there  can  be  no  hesitation,  no  possible 
contradiction.  The  patriarchal  system  is  evidently  the  origin 
of  their  social  state ;  the  belief  in  one  God  is  emphatically 
their  creed  ;  the  morality  they  professed  was  contained  in  the 
decalogue,  which  has  always  been  justly  considered  as  the  clear 
and  undisturbed  source  of  the  purest  ethical  codes  ever 
adopted.  If  the  other  branches  of  the  Semitic  family  offer  us 
in  their  subsequent  history  the  very  reverse  of  this  picture : 
despotism'-  in  society,  rank  idolatry  in  religion,  debasement  in 
moral  principles — it  could  not  have  been  so  at  the  origin,  since 
they  had  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  claiming  the  same  ancestral 
patriarchs  as  those  of  the  Hebrew  people,  the  same  belief  in 
one  God,  the  same  pure  law  certainly  anterior  to  that  of  Mount 
Sinai. 

But  it  seems  that,  after  all,  our  demonstration  is  not  com- 
plete. There  is  that  great,  universal,  primeval  Turanian  race, 
of  which  not  a  word  has  been  said,  and  to  which,  nevertheless, 
must  be  awarded  the  priority  in  human  history.  Is  it  not  in 
that  wonderful  ^tcvdiajios,  so  celebrated  among  the  most  reliable 
writers  of  ancient  Asiatic  history,  that  we  will  find  that  archaic 
barbarism  which  all  modern  researches  bring  forward  as  the 
first  state  of  man  on  earth  ?  The  spread  of  that  degraded 
family  of  races,  as  extensive  as  the  globe  itself,  the  uncouth 
manners,  so  emphatically  expressed  in  the  very  word 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  450 

the  total  absence  of  any  religious  emblems  among  the  scattered 
relies  which  remain  to  us  of  that  far-distant  age ;  everything, 
in  fact,  seems  to  proclaim  that  mankind  did  not  begin  bv  the 
golden  age,  but,  on  the  contrary,  by  an  un  doubtful  inferiority 
and  debasement. 

It  is,  in  fact,  surprising  that  the  earnest  advocates  of  early 
barbarism  have  not  yet  entoned  a  paean  of  triumph  on  the  oc- 
casion of  the  late  discoveries  in  this  field  of  ethnology.  It  is 
already  more  than  forty  years  ago  that  Dr.  Prichard  showed 
the  wide-spread  existence  of  what  he  called  the  "Allophylian 
races."  Several  modern  ethnologists  of  high  renown  have 
studied  this  question,  in  which  they  saw  the  germ  of  great  and 
interesting  findings.  Geo.  Rawlinson,  among  others,  has,  in  a 
few  solid  pages,  brought  to  bear  an  immense  erudition  on  the 
subject.  All  the  great  leaders  in  true  science  are  agreed  that 
the  Allophylian,  or  Turanian,  or  Hamitic  family  of  nations 
spread  anteriorly  to  the  Semitic  or  Aryan  branches  of  man- 
kind, and  were  of  a  type  far  inferior  to  the  more  favored  races 
which  followed  them.  Yet  nothing  has  been  said  of  this  by 
those  modern  authors  who  are  all  along  taking  advantage  of 
the  least  important  items  of  information  tending  to  prove  that 
man  was  at  first  a  brute.  ]S"ay,  more,  if  these  same  writers 
speak  of  it,  it  is  with  a  marked  diffidence,  as  did  lately  some 
unknown  contributor  to  the  "  Westminster  Review."  Those 
gentlemen  seem  to  hesitate ;  they  are  afraid  of  committing 
themselves,  being  fully  aware  that  Prichard,  Rawlinson,  Max 
Miiller,  Quatrefages,  and  other  authors  of  the  same  school,  are 
not  precisely  in  favor  of  assigning  the  gorilla  as  the  true  ances- 
tor of  man.  They  are  perfectly  wise,  and,  with  justice,  our 
Saviour  called  them  " prudentwres  fliis  lucis  in  generations 
#ua."  There  is  visible,  in  fact,  in  the  way  they  speak  and 
write  on  the  subject,  a  kind  of  awe  and  fear,  lest,  by  raising 
the  question,  they  burn  their  fingers  and  have  to  drop  it  in- 
stantly as  too  hot  for  their  flimsy,  dry,  and  combustible  theories. 


460  GENTILISM. 

Has  not  Rawlinson  already  hinted  that  in  the  Aryan,  Semitic, 
and  Turanian  families  we  can  perceive  the  posterity  of  the 
three  sons  of  Noah  ?  And,  indeed,  we  are  confident  the  same 
shall  be  proved  before  long,  as  so  many  other  biblical  facts 
have  been  ascertained  by  independent  inquirers  after  truth.  A 
few  words  have  been  said  anteriorly  on  the  subject  in  our 
second  chapter,  to  which  we  refer.  It  suffices  us  to  repeat 
that  two  consequences  are  to  be  undoubtedly  derived  from  the 
great  fact  of  OKvdiopog,  namely,  first,  that  its  anteriority  was 
one  of  expansion,  not  of  origin  ;  second,  that  it  ought  to  be 
included  within  the  historic  period,  and  cannot  be  made  to  sup- 
port the  theory  of  prehistoric  times  ;  and  thus  the  belief  in 
primeval  barbarism  cannot  find  any  help  in  the  subject  under 
consideration.  Nay,  as  hinted  previously,  the  Turanian  race 
being  evidently  identical  with  the  Hamitic,  and  the  best  ethno- 
graphers of  our  age  seeming  more  and  more  disposed  to  adopt 
this  conclusion,  the  whole  bent  of  the  question  leans  only  to 
the  admission  of  the  debasement  of  the  children  of  Ham,  in- 
cluding the  curse,  the  most  unpalatable,  certainly,  of  all  biblical 
assertions.  All  this  being  duly  considered,  there  is  no  great 
reason  to  be  surprised  that  the  supporters  of  the  new  theories 
hesitate  in  taking  advantage  of  the  Allophylian  system  of 
races. 

But  it  is  time  to  come  to  the  religious  and  moral  question  in 
this  most  obscure  subject,  and  to  ask  ourselves  if  we  can  prove, 
at  least  by  implication,  that  the  old  Turanians -led  a  patriarchal 
life,  and  believed  in  one  God,  like  their  Aryan  and  Semitic 
brethren. 

First,  there  is;the  great,  we  may  say  stupendous,  fact  of  the 
trilingual  inscriptions  found  still  everywhere  in  Asia,  whose 
most  remarkable  details  are  referred  to  by  Kawlinson.  They 
are  written  in  cuneiform  characters,  and  consequently  must  be 
ascribed  to  the  earliest  times  of  the. settlement  of  man  in  those 
countries.  They  are  called  trilingual  because  they  invariably 


SUPPLEMENTABY.  461 

proclaim  the  same  facts  in  three  different  tongues — the  Semitic, 
Aryan,  and  Turanian  dialects.  Many  of  them  were  certainly 
engraved  under  the  Persian  kings  of  the  Achemenidae  family  ; 
and  as  Herodotus  informs  us  that  in  his  own  time  there  were 
yet  a  large  Scythian  population  spread  in  Asia  among  the 
more  recent  and  cultivated  races  which  then  ruled  the  country, 
it  becomes  evident  that  all  over  that  great  continent  the  pos- 
terity of  the  three  sons  of  Noah  lived  together,  but  spoke  dif- 
ferent dialects,  reducible  to  three  original  languages,  which  our 
modern  philologists  can  now  read  in  the  precious  inscriptions 
we  are  for  the  moment  discussing. 

No  complete  list  of  them  has  been  made,  as  far  as  we  are 
informed.  It  is  very  probable  that  a  few  only  are  known,  and 
the  great  majority  of  them  are  lost  to  civilized  man  over  those 
rude  steppes  of  Central  Asia.  In  the  supposition,  consequently, 
that  in  the  few  inscriptions  that  have  reached  us  nothing  is  said 
that  would  convey  to  us  a  sufficiently  clear  information  of  the 
Turanian  religion  in  those  primitive  ages,  it  cannot  be  con- 
cluded that  these  people  had  no  knowledge  of  God  or  were 
merely  degraded  fetichists.  In  fact,  no  conclusion  whatever 
can  be  drawn  ;  and  the  best  for  us  would  seem  to  be  to  wait 
until  more  monuments  of  the  kind  have  been  discovered  and 
deciphered. 

Still  what  is  already  known  is  not  without  its  value.  The 
mere  insertion  of  the  Turanian  line  in  those  documents  en- 
graved on  the  hard  rocks,  prove  that  the  Persian  or  Median 
kings  considered  their  Turanian  subjects  as  real  men,  not  as 
pure  slaves ;  they  were  evidently  reckoned  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  commonwealth ;  they  could  read,  certainly,  since,  un- 
doubtedly, it  was  for  their  particular  benefit  that  the  third  line 
existed  in  those  inscriptions.  They  were  not,  therefore,  bar- 
barians, and  must  be  considered  as  sharing  in  the  civilization 
of  their  more  favored  brethren  living  among  and  ruling  over 
them. 


462  GENTILISM. 

Onr  friend  Zarathustra  speaks,  it  is  true,  of  Turun  as  of  a 
country  of  darkness,  in  opposition  to  Iran,  the  country  of  light ; 
and  the  very  name  indicates  the  races  on  which  we  now  are 
expatiating.  But  the  details  given  by  the  friend  of  Gustasp  in 
his  '  Vendidad"  show  conclusively  enough  that  the  people  of 
Turan  were  not  savages.  Against  the  people  of  the  south,  the 
great  Bactrian  reformer  complained  of  idolatry  ;  they  had  in- 
troduced the  worship  of  the  devas  in  a  primitively  pure  relig- 
ion ;  they  had  abjured  the  monotheism  of  their  ancestors  to  fall 
prostrate  at  the  feet  of  inferior  beings.  This  was  for  Zaratlius- 
tra a  cause  of  unrelenting  war.  He  had  nothing  of  the  kind 
to  allege  against  the  people  of  Turan.  The  great  complaint 
Zaratliustra  makes  of  them  is,  that  they  did  not  lead  a  sedentary 
life  like  the  happy  subjects  of  the  good  and  great  Gustasp ; 
ttiey  did  not  apply  themselves  to  agriculture,  to  the  planting 
of  gardens,  or  paradises,  as  they  were  called  later  on  in  Persia. 
Those  beings,  truly  wretched  in  the  estimation  of  the  author  of 
the  Gathas,  were  mere  nomads,  travelling  from  place  to  place 
with  immense  herds  and  flocks,  considering  as  their  own  prop- 
erty all  the  pasture-grounds  they  met  on  their  way  ;  and  thus, 
when  they  ventured  south  of  the  fortieth  parallel,  the  well- 
cultivated  plantations  of  Gustasp's  country  suffered  somewhat 
from  the  roving  habits  of  the  Turanians.  That  is  all ! 

But  this,  indeed,  is  a  great  deal !  It  shows  that  the  Tu- 
ranians led  the  life  of  Abraham,  of  Jacob,  of  the  Arabian  Job, 
of  many  Hindoo  Rishis,  and  Pelasgian  rovers.  These  habits 
have  a  strange  perfume  of  patriarchal  manners ;  and  if  the 
Turanians  had  left  us  some  of  their  books,  as  we  now  possess 
some  of  those  of  Zarathustra,  it  is  very  possible  that  we  would 
have  heard  a  different  story ;  and  the  rude,  nomadic  manners  of 
the  north  might  have  met  with  some  indulgence  on  our  part, 
since,  to  us,  modern  people,  belongs  evidently  the  right  of 
judging  and  deciding  on  everything  connected  with  barbarism 
or  civilization.  The  speech  of  the  "  paysan  du  Danube,"  in 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  463 

the  celebrated  fable  of  Lafontaine,  is  certainly  pointed  enough, 
and  shows  some  of  the  fallacies  of  an  overgrown  culture,  at 
the  same  time  that  it  establishes  forcibly  the  claims  of  a  simple 
and  inoffensive  freedom  for  the  most  unsophisticated  part  of 
mankind.  But  that  "  paysan  "  is  just  a  Scythian,  a  Turanian, 
an  Allophylian,  anything  you  choose,  except  a  refined  Aryan 
or  Semite.  The  author  of  the  fable,  it  is  true,  supposes  him 
to  be  a  German  and  an  agriculturist ;  but  Lafontaine  lived  in 
an  age  when  ethnplogy  was  unknown ;  had  he  been  born  a 
couple  of  centuries  later,  he  would  have  made  him  come  from 
Turan,  and  extoll  the  advantages  of  a  nomadic  life,  as  a  true 
Cossack  of  the  Danube" or  the  Don  is  in  duty  bound  to  do. 

But  pleasantry  apart,  it  is  seriously  true  that  the  roving 
habits  of  the  ancient  Scythian  race,  as  it  was  called  by  the 
Greek  authors,  did  not  suppose  a  state  of  barbarism  and  sav- 
agery. We  see  in  Persian  history,  when  their  country  was  in- 
vaded by  Darius,  how  coolly,  systematically,  and  successfully 
they  opposed  an  army  of  seven  hundred  thousand  men  by  the 
only  strategy  which  could  def e  it  the  enemy.  They  did  exactly 
what  the  Russians  did  in  our  age  to  overthrow  Napoleon. 
They  retired  into  the  interior  of  their  wild  country,  driving 
back  their  herds  before  them,  destroying  all  the  crops  which 
could  furnish  food  to  the  Persians,  and  filling  ifp  the  wells 
where  the  enemy  could  have  obtained  pure  water.  In  a  few 
months,  Darius,  the  Mede,  had  to  return  with  a  poor  remnant 
of  his  former  splendid  and  numerous  troops,  and,  perhaps,  not 
one  of  his  soldiers  would  have  returned  if  the  Athenian  gen- 
eral, left  in  charge  of  the  bridges  over  the  Danube,  had  not 
kept  faith  with  the  Persian  monarch,  and  waited,  according  to 
promise,  for  the  falling  back  of  the  defeated  army.  In  this 
occurrence  the  Turanian  races  of  Northern  Europe — the  least 
advanced  of  all  the  tribes  of  the  same  stock,  according  to 
public  opinion  —  showed  a  foresight,  a  sturdy  energy,  a  well- 
sustained  perseverance  worthy  only  of  very  civilized  people. 
31  . 


464  GENTILISM. 

After  agriculturist  nations,  the  pastoral  tribes  are  certainly 
to  be  accounted  the  most  civilized ;  they  are,  in  that  regard,  far 
in  advance  of  the  hunting  and  fishing  hordes.  Every  eth- 
nologist admits  this  view  of  the  matter,  and  classifies  the  races 
of  mankind  according  to  this  standard.  But  in  the  estimation 
of  all  well-informed  men,  the  Turanian  tribes  are  mostly  in- 
cluded among  the  pasture-graziers,  stock-raising,  and  cattle- 
feeding  people.  They  were  primitively  all  nomads ;  and  if 
some  of  them  have  been  agriculturists  for  many  ages — as  the 
Chinese,  who  certainly  belong  to  that  class  of  nations — the 
great  majority  of  them,  to  the  present  day,  are  yet  nomad  and 
pastoral  people.  All  the  Tartar  nations,  so  numerous  and  far- 
spread  in  point  of  territory,  are' of  this  category.  The  Arabs, 
almost  without  exception,  were  formerly  of  the  same  charac- 
ter, and  many  Arabian  tribes  continue  to  be  the  same  to  this 
day.  The  Turanians,  therefore,  even  those  of  the  earliest  age, 
partook  of  the  general  characteristics  of  many  Semitic  tribes  ; 
and  we  know  that  Baron  Larrey  considers  the  Syro-Arabian 
type  of  man  as  the  highest  in  existence,  placing-  it,  as  he  does, 
directly  above  the  Hellenic  and  Caucasian.  To  be  sure,  the 
physical  characters  of  all  Semites  are  of  a  higher  order  than  the 
same  features  of  any  Turanian  stock  ;  but  the  habits  of  both 
classes  of  men  being  essentially  the  same,  namely,  pastoral 
and  rural,  indicate  almost  the  same  degree  of  civilization. 

The  conclusion  to  be  drawn  from  all  these  considerations  is 
plain  and  forcible  :  the  Turanians  have  never  been  savages, 
and  many  of  them  have  attained  a  high  state  of  culture.  But 
we  must  come  to  the  real  difficulty,  included  in  the  very  simple 
question,  What  of  their  religion  ? 

For  the  solution  of  it  we  have  no  books,  sacred  or  profane, 
belonging  to  the  whole  race ;  no  general  traditions  current 
among  them — except,  undoubtedly,  flood  traditions — no  narra- 
tive of  migrations  connecting  them  with  higher  races  ;  nothing 
that  can  be  extracted  from  their  language  which  is  of  a  quite 


SUPPLE MENTABY.  465 

different  character  from  that  of  the  Aryans  or  Semites.  Nay, 
their  tongues  are  rather  a  real  stumbling-block  in  our  wav,  since 
they  never  had  an  alphabet,  and  scarcely  ever  rose  to  the  hiero- 
glyphic character,  or,  worse  still,  to  picture-writing.  How  can, 
we  hope  to  know  which  God  they  worshipped,  which  code  of 
morality  they  followed,  what  social  principles  they  had  primi- 
tively adopted  ?  There  is  only  one  way  left  us  to  come  out  of 
this  labyrinth ;  but  it  is,  after  all,  a  simple  and  easy  one.  It 
will  directly  open  itself  to  us  if  we  merely  ask  the  secondary 
question :  Are  there  yet  Turanian  nations  in  existence,  and 
what  are  they  in  point  of  religion  and  morality  ?  Their 
present  status  may  unveil  to  a  great  extent  their  mysterious 
origin. 

All  the  ethnographers  of  our  age  are  agreed  upon  this: 
that  the  Chinese  belong  to  the  universally-spread  Turanian 
race.  This  seems  to  be  a  settled  point ;  and  this  finally  clears 
up  a  great  deal  of  the  mystery  which,  till  our  days,  hung  as  a 
thick  mist  on  the  origin  of  this  extraordinary  nation.  There 
are  other  actual  races  of  men  which  likewise  can  claim  the 
same  starting-point ;  among  them  the  pure  Tartars,  and  the 
Siberian  tribes ;  but  as  their  history  is  less  known  than  that  of 
the  native  inhabitants  of  the  Celestial  empire,  and  as  we  are 
limited  in  the  space  left  us  for  these  last  investigations,  we 
must  confine  ourselves  to  the  single  line  of  inquiry  suggested 
by  the  real  antiquities  of  China. 

It  may  be  considered  as  certain  that  the  same  race  of  inhabit- 
ants has  lived  in  this  extreme  part  of  Asia  since  the  first  mi- 
gration of  man  from  his  original  centre.  They  must  have  come 
from  frhe  West ;  and  if  the  general  opinion  about  them*  is  cor- 
rect, and  they  are  Hamites,  they  must  have  started  either  from 
Africa  or  from  that  part  of  western  Asia  which  is  contiguous 
to  it.  They  have  annals  going  back  to  the  year  2637  before 
Christ;  but  the  followers  of  Lao-tseu  speak  of  interminable 
dynasties  reaching,  finally,  up  to  the  first  monarch,  Pankou, 


466  GENTILISM. 

whose  surname,  Hoen-tun  (primordial  chaos),  indicates  the 
purely  mythological  character  of  the  history.  It  is  known. 
moreover,  that  the  spread  of  the  Hamites  was  anterior  to  that 
•of  the  Aryans  and  Semites. 

In  order  to  determine  their  primitive  religion — the  only 
thing  of  real  importance  here — the  first  step  must  be  to  con- 
sider their  public  worship  since  the  Europeans  became  in  con- 
tact with  them.  At  the  time  of  the  landing  of  the  Portuguese 
on  their  coast — the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century — the 
religious  aspect  of  the  country  was  precisely  what  it  is  at  this 
moment,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  hundred  thousand  Chris- 
tians existing  at  present,  who  have  been  with  great  difficulties 
converted  to  the  true  faith.  The  great  mass  of  the  common 
people  was  then,  and  is  yet,  Buddhist ;  and  as  the  founder  of 
the  sect,  Gautama,  is  not  older  than  six  hundred  years  before 
Christ,  we  cannot  consider  this  system  of  atheistic  idolatry  as 
having  any  connection  with  the  primeval  worship  of  the  Chi- 
nese. This  element  ought,  therefore,  to  be  set  aside,  and  there 
is  no  need  of  making  any  future  allusion  to  it.  The  remainder 
of  the  population  is  composed  of  followers  of  Lao-tseu,  and  of 
Confucius,  and  it  is  among  these  two  branches  of  religious 
opinion  that  we  may  be  able  to  discover  the  original  worship 
of  the  Chinese.  The  first  of  these  philosophers  was  born  in 
604  before  Christ,  half  a  century  previous  to  Confucius.  He 
founded  the  religion  of  the  Tao  (supreme  reason),  which,  he 
pretended,  is  anterior  to,  and  the  source  of,  the  divinities  I,  Hi, 
Wei.  But  he  did  not  reject  the  worship  of  these  divinities. 
He,  on  the  contrary,  taught  openly  the  belief  in  the  existence 
of  a  spiritual  world,  giving  rise  to  spiritual  manifestations 
among  men,  and  connected  with  a  whole  system  of  migration 
of  souls  after  death.  The  religion  of  Lao-tseu,  therefore,  is 
not  altogether  an  atheistic  system ;  far  from  it ;  and,  conse- 
quently, a  great  number  of  common  people  in  China  still  fol- 
low it.  Its  priests  live  in  temples  and  small  communities  with 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  467 

their  families,  "  deriving,"  it  is  said,  "a  precarious  liveliliood 
from  the  sale  of  charms." 

The  sect  of  Confucius,  who  appeared  directly  after  Lao- 
tseu,  is  of  a  very  different  character.  It  embraces  only  rich 
men,  or  officials  of  the  government  called  Mandarins.  It  is 
merely  a  system  of  moral  philosophy  clothed  in  a  fantastical 
symbolism  ;  the  four  cardinal  virtues  :  piety,  morality,  justice, 
and  wisdom,  coming  into  combination  with  mere  physical 
beings  or  attributes  of  matter,  such  as  moistuess,  fire,  winds, 
water,  mountains,  thunder,  earth.  Heaven  and  earth  with 
man  become,  as  it  were,  the  heads  of  three  series,  called  king- 
doms. The  only  question  is  to  know  if  Heaven — Tien,  or 
Shanti — is  merely  the  material  heaven,  or  the  God  of  heaven. 
Everyone  is  acquainted  with  the  long  controversy  which  arose 
in  China  last  century  among  the  Catholic  missionaries ;  a  con- 
troversy which  ended  by  a  Pontifical  decree  forbidding  to  allow 
the  Chinese  converts  to  use  the  native  rites,  chiefly  to  Tien,  or 
Shanti  ;  as  evidently  in  the  modern  Chinese  religion,  the 
direct  object  of  those  rites  is  only  what  is  generally  called 
"  the  vault  of  heaven,"  and  not  God  himself.  The  system  of 
Confucius  is,  therefore,  positively  an  atheistic  system ;  and  it 
is  not  in  it  that  we  can  find  the  primeval  religion  of  China,  if 
it  was  monotheistic.  Our  only  hope,  consequently,  must  turn, 
toward  the  actually  despised  religion  of  Tao,  to  which  belongs 
a  great  number  of  people  of  the  lowest  class. 

A  remark,  however,  on  what  has  just  been  said  of  Confu- 
cius' system,  cannot  be  deprived  of  interest.  We  find  in  it, 
together  with  cardinal  virtues,  physical  entities  which  are  not ' 
entirely  foreign  to  our  previous  acquaintance  with  Hindostan. 
Moistness  is  probably  the  moist  atmosphere,  and  must  be  the 
Indra  of  the  Vedas ;  fire  is  certainly  Agni ;  winds  must  be 
the  meruts  of  India,  etc.  Who  knows  if  primitively  Heaven 
was  not  Brahma  neuter,  or  the  invisible  (Jrod  ;  and  Earth,  Brah- 
ma male,  or  the  visible  universe  ?  For  the  Pontifical  decision 


468  GENTILISM. 

of  the  question  affected  only  actual  times  and  circumstances ; 
the  object  of  Rome  was  to  prevent  actual  Chinese  Christians 
from  performing  really  superstitious,  if  not  positively  idola- 
trous, rites.  But  the  consideration  of  the  primitive  religion  of 
China  did  not,  and  could  not  enter  into  the  mind  of  the  Su- 
preme Pontiff.  We  are  at  liberty,  therefore,  to  ask  ourselves 
if  originally  the  religious  ideas  of  the  Chinese  were  not  very 
different  from  what  they  are  actually,  and  if  there  has  not  been 
a  decline  in  their  belief,  as  it  has  been  found  out- was  the  case 
with  the  Indians,  Egyptians,  and  Greeks  ?  And  on  the  thres- 
hold of  this  investigation  we  are  surprised  to  see  the  nomencla- 
ture of  Confucius'  preternatural  beings  coincide  in  many  points 
with  that  of  the  Yedic  devatas. 

It  is,  however,  in  the  primitive  system  of  Lao-tseu  that  we 
are  more  likely  to  find  what  interests  us  at  this  moment ;  and 
we  must  consider  more  closely  what  is  called  the  Tao  religion 
in  China.  G.  Pauthier  and  Abel  de  Re'musat  in  France  have, 
it  may  be  said,  profoundly  studied  the  question.  The  first 
published  a  "  Memoir  on  the  origin  and  propagation  of  the 
doctrine  of  Tao,"  and  illustrated  it  with  a  commentary  drawn 
from  Sanscrit  books,  and  from  the  Tao-te-king  of  Lao-tseu ;  the 
whole  followed  by  the  translation  of  two  Vedic  Upanishads, 
having  a  visible  reference  to  the  Tao  doctrine.  The  book  ap- 
peared in  Paris  in  1831. 

From  the  publication  of  this  important  work,  it  became 
evident  that  the  primeval  belief  of  the  Chinese  was  not  com- 
pletely isolated  from  that  of  other  primitive  races ;  and  a  new 
and  important  link  was  established  between  the  Turanian 
family  of  nations  and  their  Aryan  brethren.  But  it  is  chiefly 
the  text  itself  of  the  Chinese  author  which  was  found  full  of 
philosophical  and  religious  considerations  which  few  men  in- 
deed could  have  expected.  The  general  opinion  of  all  those 
who  are  acquainted  with  modern  China  is.  that  apart  from  the 
Buddhist  votaries  given  over  to  the  senseless  superstitions  re- 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  469 

placing  for  the  vulgar  the  open  atheism  advocated  by  the  chiefs 
of  the  sect,  apart,  we  say,  for  the  degrading  idolatry  of  the 
worshippers  of  Fo  or  Buddha,  the  remainder  of  the  nation, 
the  upper  classes  of  society  in  particular,  are  left  absolutely 
without  a  religion  of  any  kind,  except  the  worship  of  ancestors ; 
do  not  believe  neither  in  a  personal  God,  nor  in  the  immor- 
tality of  the  soul ;  live  brutally  in  this  world,  and  die  with  a 
complete  indifference,  as  expecting  no  other.  This  is  the  uni- 
versal, and  for  aught  we  know,  the  correct  opinion  of  all  well- 
informed  people. 

But  the  books  called  Kings  come  here  counter  to  that  idea, 
and  certify  that  it  has  not  always  been  so  in  that  devoted  coun- 
try. Before  the  age  of  Lao-tseu,  the  Y-King  existed  already, 
and  was  attributed  to  Fo-hi,  identified  by  many  learned  men 
with  ^oah  himself.  But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  this 
pretension,  it  is  sure  that  in  the  Y-King  there  is  question  of  a 
real  God  appearing  at  the  origin  of  this  visible  creation,  the 
corner-stone  of  it,  and  evidently  its  regulator  at  least ;  since  He 
is  called  Ly  and  Too,  that  is,  Law  and  Reason.  This  is,  in- 
deed, as  cold  and  dry  as  the  Chinese  character ;  and  the  exuber- 
ance of  fancy  of  other  cosmologists,  chiefly  in  Hindostan  and 
Greece,  is  poorly  replaced  at  the  extreme  end  of  the  Asiatic 
continent ;  yet  Ly  and  Tao  is,  at  least,  as  imaginative  as  the 
primu-m  mobile  of  Aristotle ;  and  the  writer  of  the  Y-King  in- 
tended certainly  to  strike  the  mind  of  his  readers  and  call 
their  attention  to  the  mighty  Governor  of  the  world. 

But  we  must  carefully  examine  the  chief  supernatural  expres- 
sions contained  in  the  Kings  attributed  to  Lao-tseu ;  for  this 
philosopher  wrote  several  of  them,  particularly  one  of  great 
importance.  Those  which  are  supposed  to  be  the  .work  of  Con- 
fucius would  poorly  reward  us  for  our  trouble,  as  the  great 
moralist  of  China  seems  not  to  have  had  the  least  idea  of  a  real 
God ;  and,  on  this  account,  have  we  already  set  aside  his  doc- 
trine,- which  we  leave  without  regret  to  the  meditations  of  the 


470  GENTILISM. 

Mandarins.  The  Tao-te-King  seems  to  be  really  the  work  of 
Lao-tseu  ;  and  it  will  be  sufficient  to  confine  our  investigations 
within  the  circle  of  this  extraordinary  work.  Since  the  "  Me- 
moir "  published  by  Pauthier  in  1831,  Stanislas  Julien,  another 
French  sinologue,  gave  from  the  manuscripts  of  his  confrere  a 
translation  of  the  whole  Tao-te-King,  which  appeared  in  Paris 
in  1842. 

The  word  Too  itself  is  somewhat  obscure.  Taken  materially 
it  means  only  a  way,  a  road.  But  Lao-tseu  was  a  metaphysical 
and  religious  writer,  and  from  the  context  of  the  whole  book 
it  is  clear  that  it  means  a  road  to  lead  to  reason  ;  and  the  word 
reason,  from  the  same  context,  must  receive  a  high  interpreta- 
tion, and  designates  certainly  primordial  reason,  the  mind 
which  created  the  world,  and  which  governs  it  as  the  soul  gov- 
erns the  body.  It  is  thus  somewhat  akiii  to  the  A6yo<;  of  the 
Greek  schools,  with,  it  is  true,  something  of  the  pantheism 
of  the  Hindoo  "  Universal  Soul." 

From  the  investigations  of  Pauthier  and  of  Remusat,  the 
word  Tao  has,  in  fact,  three  significations,  which  Lao-tseu  em- 
braced, or  rather  supposed  were  contained,  at  the  same  time, 
in  this  short  expression.  It  means,  first,  reason,  properly  so 
called ;  then,  speech  •  finally,  the  Supreme  Reason  of  God ; 
exactly  as  Aoyof  in  Greek,  which  also  is  susceptible  of  these 
three  meanings. 

In  a  celebrated  passage  of  the  Tao-te-King,  it  is  said  that 
this  "  reason  has  no  name,  in  some  respect,  and  in  another 
respect,  it  has  a  name  ; "  and  a  Chinese  commentator  on  these 
words  of  Lao-tseu  expresses  himself  in  this  wise  :  "  By  itself  and 
in  its  essence  Reason  cannot  have  a  name,  since  it  existed  pre- 
vious to  all  beings  (before  names  were  required  to  distinguish 
them);  but  when  primordial  motion  began,  and  being  suc- 
ceeded to  no-being,  it  could  receive  a  name." 

It  is  impossible  not  to  remark  here  almost  an  identity  with 
the  Vedas  of  Hindostan  and  the  Hermaic  books  of  Egypt. 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  471 

In  the  twenty-first  chapter  of  the  Taote-King  there  is  men- 
tion made  of  a  kind  of  cosmogony;  when  to  the  indistinctness 
of  primordial  chaos,  in  which  all  beings  were  confused,  imper- 
ceptible, indefinite — invisible,  consequently — succeeded  their 
actual  state  of  order,  perceptibility,  explicitness,  and,  in  conse- 
quence, visibility.  This  is,  no  doubt,  the  Egyptian  doctrine  of 
the  visible  Universe,  son  of  the  invisible  God ;  but  in  the  doc- 
trine of  Lao-tsen,  the  very  first  expression  is  pure  pantheism. 
This  ought  not  to  surprise,  since,  at  that  very  epoch,  the  sixth 
century  before  Christ,  it  was  thus  likewise  in  Egypt. 

The  forty-second  chapter  contains  the  following  remarkable 
apophthegm  :  "  Reason  produced  one  ;  one  produced  two  ; 
two,  three ;  three,  everything.  The  Universe  is  based  on  an 
obscure  principle  (matter) ;  it  is  embraced  by  a  lucid  principle 
(heaven);  a  tepid  afflatus  harmonizes  the  whole."  Out  of 
this  vague  and  indefinite  sentence  Christian  truths  can  be  de- 
duced, as  well  as  pantheistic  and  l^eoplatonist  errors. 

But  the  most  remarkable  passage,  perhaps,  of  the  whole 
book,  is  the  following  :  "  What  you  look  at  and  do  not  see,  is 
I ;  what  you  listen  to  and  do  not  hear,  is  Hi ;  what  you  try  to 
touch  and  cannot  is  WEI — three  beings  which  cannot  be  under- 
stood and  form  but  One.  The  first  of  them  is  neither  brighter 

nor  more  obscure  than  the  last Whoever  can  conceive 

a  right  idea  of  the  primitive  state  of  reason  (the  non-existence 
of  beings  before  creation)  can  know  the  principle,  and  holds 
in  his  hand  the  chain  of  reason." 

Many  Catholic  missionaries  saw  in  these  words  an  almost 
clear  expression  of  the  Trinity.  This  holy  dogma  is  certainly 
more  positively  asserted  in  this  passage  than  in  any  Platonist 
sentence  which  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  understood  as  con- 
taining it.  The  most  striking  part  of  it  is  undoubtedly  the 
nomenclature  of  the  successive  letters  I,  H,  Y,  which  reproduce 
almost  exactly  the  Hebrew  tetragraminaton  IHY — Jehova — 
and  which  many  learned  men  have  recognized  in  the  lao  of 


472  GENTILISM. 

the  Greeks,  the  Jov.  of  the  Latins,  and  the  Jub.  or  Juba  of  the 
Mauritanians. 

The  individual  life  of  Lao-tseu  presents  many  analogies  with 
that  of  Pythagoras.  He  is  said  to  have  travelled  in  the  west, 
towards  Hindostan  consequently  ;  he  pretended  also  to  have 
passed  through  several  successive  transformations.  His  doc- 
trine is  as  redolent  of  Pythagorism,  and  of  Platonisrn  in  theory, 
as  of  Stoicism  in  ethics.  All  these  particularities  are,  no 
doubt,  totally  unknown  to  his  actual  votaries  in  China,  who 
belong  to  the  most  ignorant  classes  of  society ;  nay,  the  priests 
of  the  sect  he  founded,  who  are  known  chiefly  in  this  age 
for  their  vulgarity,  and  the  sordid  inclination  which  prompts 
them  to  sell  charms,  and  live  at  the  expense  of  the  people, 
know  probably  no'thing  of  the  elevated  doctrines  of  the  Tao-te- 
King  •  yet  the  book  exists,  and  Europe  is  indebted  for  the 
knowledge  of  it  to  Pauthier,  Julien,  and  Remusat.  To  these 
gentlemen  we  owe  the  advantage  of  a  positive  acquaintance 
with  primitive  China,  and  consequently  with  more  than  half 
the  Turanian  world.  Owing  to  this  we  have  acquired  the  cer- 
tainty that  the  ancient  SuvOionog  was  not  a  state  of  barbarism. 
All  the  details  which  have  just  passed  under  review  prove,  on 
the  contrary,  that,  as  with  respect  to  the  Aryan  and  Semitic 
families  of  nations,  so  likewise  with  regard  to  these,  the  higher 
we  go  in  point  of  time  the  more  enlightened  the  Turanians 
were ;  and  we  have  a  right  to  assert  that  as  the  Tao-te-King  of 
Lao-tseu  was  a  compilation  of  only  the  sixth  century  before 
Christ,  it  was  not  the  very  text  of  the  books  which  existed 
anteriorly,  and  out  of  which  the  founder  of  the  Tao-sse  formed 
his  system.  The  original  work  must  have  been  much  more 
clear  and  emphatic  in  regard  to  the  Unity,  Infinity,  Almighti- 
ness  of  the  Creator,  chiefly  in  regard  to  His  personality  and 
Infinite  power  over  the  world.  A  new  proof,  if  it  were  need- 
ed, that  at  the  beginning  all  races  of  men  enjoyed  a  high  relig- 
ious and  moral  knowledge, 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  473 

Another  very  important  remark  is  derived  from  the  palpable 
and  most  evident  character  of  the  Tao-te-King.  It  is  altogeth- 
er a  dry  and  metaphysical  composition.  It  almost  reproduces  in 
China  the  peculiarities  of  the  Sankya  philosophy  in  Ilindo- 
stun.  As  the  writers  of  this  Indian  school  indulged  in  abstruse 
theoretical  speculations,  which  changed  altogether  the  scope  of 
the  elevated  compositions  of  the  Vedas,  and  introduced  a  thor- 
ough and  consistent  pantheism,  whilst  in  the  previous  upan- 
ishads  this  error  was  contained  only  in  germ,  and  was  counter- 
acted by  many  clear  and  emphatic  utterances  of  the  primitive 
doctrine,  so  likewise  the  work  of  Lao-tseu  presents  to  our 
intellect  a  series  of  most  abstract  apophthegms  and  considera- 
tions, all  merging  in  a  dry  pantheism,  as  absolute  and  rigorous 
as  that  of  the  Sankya  philosophy.  There  is  not,  therefore,  any 
rashness  in  supposing  that  this  erroneous  and  strict  system  of 
the  Chinese  philosopher  was  derived  from  a  previous,  far  supe- 
rior doctrine,  of  which  the  human  mind  had  not  been  the  sole 
expounder,  but  which  can  be,  by  analogy  at  least,  attributed  to 
that  primitive  revelation  whose  vestiges  we  have  encountered 
everywhere  in  the  ancient  world.  From  all  previous  considera- 
tions the  idea  that  all  ancient  religions  began  by  pantheism 
must  by  this  time  be  exploded. 

The  few  discoveries  lately  made  in  Turanian  antiquities  have 
not  thus  been  altogether  barren  of  interesting  results.  It  is  a 
field  which  has  just  been  opened  these  last  few  years.  When 
more  is  known  of  it,  and  men  of  true  science  and  impartial 
mind,  like  Prichard  and  Rawlinson,  have  collected  new  facts, 
analyzed  and  classified  them,  the  conclusions  which  we  begin 
to  foresee,  and  which  already,  to  a  certain  extent,  can  be  de- 
duced and  enunciated,  will  be  much  more  precise,  and,  in  our 
firm  conviction,  complete  the  demonstration  which,  at  the  pres- 
ent time,  can  be  but  given  with  some  diffidence  and  hesitation. 
It  is,  however,  already  a  strict  conclusion  from  facts  lately 
known,  that  the  most  primitive  times  of  mankind  were  not 


474  GENTILISM. 

universally  given  over  to  barbarism,  and  to  manners  akin  to 
those  of  the  bmte.  This,  at  least,  is  strictly  deduced  from 
what  is  positively  known  of  those  early  times. 

A  last  reflection  on  China  as  an  index  of  the  Turanian 
period,  is  naturally  inferred  from  the  government  and  social 
state  of  this  extraordinary  country.  It  subsists  yet  under 
the  patriarchal  polity ;  and  although  the  Emperor  is  in  fact  a 
despot,  he  preserves  at  least,  pro  forma,  in  all  his  decrees,  the 
original  language  of  a  father.  A  multitude  of  details  in  legis- 
lation, social  customs,  and  inveterate  habits,  find  their  best  ex- 
planation in  the  origin  of  government  on  the  clan  pattern. 
Henry  Sumner  Maine  has  lately  demonstrated  that  the  laws  of 
ancient  Rome,  and  those  of  modern  England,  are  clearly  refer- 
able to  the  same  source  ;  but  he  might  have  found  a  still  more 
striking  example  of  his  theory  in  modern  China.  The  book  on 
"Ancient  Law"  deserves,  however,  to  be  read  by  all  men  desir- 
ous of  obtaining  an  exact  knowledge  of  primitive  times.*  And 
nothing  more  appropriate  and  confirmatory  of  the  views  advo- 
cated all  along  by  us,  could  have  been  published  at  this  time. 
"We  only  regret  not  to  have  known  the  book  except  at  this  last 
moment  of  our  present  writing. 

It  is  evidently  one  of  the  most  important  branches  of  archae- 
ological study,  to  dive  in  the  few  remains  existing  in  Asia  and 
northern  Europe,  of  what  has  been  called  the  Turanian  period. 
Inscriptions,  monuments,  fragments  of  the  human  body,  skulls 
particularly,  such  as  those  studied  by  Dr.  Pruner-Bey  in  the 
north  of  France,  everything  even  of  the  least  importance  ap- 
parently, ought  to  be  collected  with  care,  compared,  examined 
attentively,  and  explained  with  respect  to  their  bearings  on  the 
religion,  customs,  and  civilization  of  those  primitive  times. 
This  is,  in  our  opinion,  the  most  sure  means  of  dispelling  and 
exorcising  the  phantom  of  barbarism,  evoked  with  such  perse- 

*  In  Appendix  II.,  at  the  end  of  this  volume,  the  reader  will  find  some 
reflections  on  Mr.  Maine's  "  Ancient  Law." 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  475 

verance  by  a  multitude  of  modern  writers.  If  our  first  progen- 
itors were  barbarians  we  will  surely  find  the  proofs  of  it  in 
Turanian  relics.  But  let  the  inquirer  ascertain  first,  that  what- 
ever he  chooses  for  the  basis  of  his  investigations  is  really  an- 
cient and  primeval ;  let  him  not,  like  Sir  John  Lubbock,  look 
eagerly  after  the  fish-hooks,  stone-hatchets,  oaken  clubs  of  some 
modern  degraded  islanders,  and  conclude  forthwith  that  these 
were  the  tools  of  primitive  man ;  let  him  not  collect  all  the 
senseless  tales,  obscene  details,  and  brutish  narratives  related 
by  travellers  of  actually  living  tribes  on  the  extreme  verge  of 
poor  degraded  humanity,  and  exclaim  at  once  that  this  is 
always  the  first  phase  of  human  history,  and  the  first  inklings 
of  "  early  civilization."  But  let  the  impartial  inquirer  ascer- 
tain positively  that  whatever  he  has  found  and  collected,  is  of 
a  real  antiquity,  appertains  to  the  primitive  Turanian  epoch, 
can  be  proved  to  be  referable  to  the  early  oicvdiopos  of  Epi- 
phanius  and  Herodotus ;  and  the  sure  conclusion  will  be  that 
even  then  men  were  civilized,  adored  the  true  God,  and  had  a 
code  of  morality  akin  to  ours. 


The  circle  at  last  is,  we  think,  completed,  the  curve  is  closed, 
and  no  link  is  missing  in  the  long  chain.  The  Aryan  family  of 
nations  has  spoken  with  unanimity,  in  an  unmistakable  lan- 
guage, and  has  appeared  before  us  in  its  native  grandeur  and 
solemn  aspect.  The  Semitic  races  seemed  at  first  to  frustrate 
our  hopes,  and  stand  in  judgment  against  our  conclusions  ;  but 
a  more  close  attention  has  brought  even  them  in  accord  with 
their  Japhetic  brethren,  and  the  Hebrew  branch  of  that  great 
family  has  made  amends  for  previous  misconceptions,  and  given 
back  to  the  whole  stock  the  precious  boon  which  they  seemed 
to  have  lost.  Nothing  could  give  a  stronger  confirmation  to  the 
assertions  of  our  first  chapter,  and  bring  more  in  relief  the 
primitive  plfn  of  God  in  the  creation  of  the  human  species. 


476  GENTILISM. 

The  Turanians,  finally,  although  still  somewhat  doubtfully,  are 
gradually  brought  back  to  a  dignified  level  with  their  more 
favored  brethren ;  and  this  uncertain  utterance  in  their  voice 
agrees  precisely  with  what  we  conceive  to  be  the  necessity  of 
the  case  with  respect  to  the  descendants  of  Ham,  the  inheritors 
of  the  curse  of  Canaan. 

But,  together  with  the  primeval  unanimity  of  the  whole 
human  race  in  expressing  the  same  truths,  and  exhibiting  the 
same  conscientious  morality,  the  subsequent  history  of  all  the 
branches  of  mankind  has  manifested  with  clearness,  and  with 
an  unfortunate  accord,  the  great  law  of  degeneracy  which  can 
be  pointed  out  everywhere  on  earth  during  the  thousands  of 
years  which  preceded  Christianity.  Hindostan,  Central  Asia, 
Egypt,  Greece,  Italy,  and  the  whole  anterior  Turanian  world 
have  spoken  the  same  language,  and  demonstrated  the  same 
fact.  Only,  it  is  true,  a  few  broad  and  bold  features  of  it  have 
been  brought  forward,  and  formed  the  chain  of  the  argument. 
But  to  this  were  we  reduced  by  the  limits  of  our  plan.  The 
reader  must  be,  by  this  time,  persuaded  that  an  indefinite  num- 
ber of  *  details  could  easily  be  adduced  to  strengthen  the  same 
conclusions.  Yolumes  of  notes,  taken  from  the  annals  of  an- 
cient nations,  and  scarcely  ever  contradicted  by  other  facts  of  a 
dissimilar  character,  could  without  difficulty  be  printed — culled 
in  reading,  with  pen  in  hand,  from  the  innumerable  books 
which  daily  issue  from  the  press  of  all  nations,  in  all  languages, 
and  of  all  schools,  even  of  the  one  most  opposed  to  our  view  of 
the  case. 

This  ancient  law  of  degeneracy  must,  by  this  time,  be  con- 
sidered as  strictly  demonstrated,  and  it  is  to  be  wondered  at 
that  there  are  yet  assertors  of  the  "  continuous  progress  "  of 
mankind. 

Yet  a  strong  objection  meets  us  here  with  regard  to  the 
entire  tone  of  this  volume,  an  objection  which  unfortunately 
becomes  every  day  more  emphatic  and  outspoketi,  although*it 


SUPPLEMENTARY.     *  477 

saps  the  foundation  of  society,  and  opposes,  with  its  stem  re- 
solve, all  the  leanings  of  the  human  race  in  all  ages,  if  we 
except  the  small  band  of  materialists,  and  atheists  more  active 
now  than  ever. 

The  objection  is  this :  The  plan  of  history  you  draw  sup- 
poses in  your  primitive  revelation  a  direct  intervention  of  God 
which  is  not  proved,  and  you  are  reduced  to  represent  man  as 
unable  to  develop  his  own  destiny  by  his  own  efforts,  con-* 
stantly  in  struggle  with  his  Master,  yet  finally  conquering  even 
Him,  to  fall  directly  a  prey  to  his  own  degraded  passions.  In 
our  age  science  requires  that  the  moral  world  should  be  ex- 
plained without  a  deus  ex  machina,  but  merely  by  the  play  of 
human  agency  and  human  power. 

This  is  the  proud  arid,  we  may  say,  awful  dictum  of  many 
writers  of  our  age,  in  the  opinion  of  whom  God,  if  lie  exists, 
does  not  condescend  to  care  for  His  creatures,  but  leaves  them 
to  their  fate,  even  in  the  supposition  that  He  gave  them  exist- 
ence. Apuleius  himself  would  have  explained  :  "  Can  we  be 
left  without  the  thought,  and  the  hope  of  heaven  ?"  To  declare 
that  everything  supernatural  ought  to  be  rejected  at  once,  by 
the  very  fact  that  it  is  above  nature ;  to  disconnect  consequently 
the  history  of  man  from  the  designs  of  a  Creator  and  Master ; 
to  abandon  us  to  an  unknown  destiny,  and  condemn  us  to  a 
perpetual  ignorance  of  our  origin  and  our  end,  is  the  most  ter- 
rible sentence  which  can  be  pronounced  against  humanity.  • 
"With  numberless  aspirations  towards  a  supreme  happiness,  and 
owing  to  this,  always  dissatisfied  with  what  the  earth  can  afford, 
claiming  by  all  the  aims  of  our  soul  kindred  with  God  himself, 
and  in  our  inmost  consciousness  infinitely  superior  to  the  whole 
earth  on  which  we  tread,  we  are  told  that  all  these  longing  de- 
sires are  deceptions,  and  that  this  irresistible  attraction  towards 
heaven  is  a  folly.  The  whole  of  mankind  protests  against  this 
condemnation  to  self-abasement,  and  a  condemnation,  too,  pro- 
nounced by  a  few  theorists  who  pretend  that  their  only  aim  is 


478  GENTILISM. 

to  restore  to  mankind  its  rights.  Away  with  such  rights  which 
end  in  dishonor  and  nothingness  !  We  know  better,  since  the 
hand  of  God  has  imprinted  in  our  very  hearts,  together  with 
His  law,  the  promise  of  the  reward  due  to  its  observance, 
namely,  the  possession  of  heaven  and  of  Himself. 

Who  is  base  enough  to  advise  us  to  reject  what  our  nature 
aspires  to  with  all  its  energy,  and  embrace  what  cannot  be  but 
'loathsome  to  a  noble  soul  ?  Yet  all  this  pretension,  that  science 
must  set  God  and  His  revelation  aside,  in  order  to  have  our 
mind  enlightened  with  regard  to  our  origin  and  destiny,  comes 
finally  to  this :  that  we  are  not  placed  oft  a  higher  level  than 
the  beasts  of  the  field,  and  like  them  are  destined  to  perish  for 
ever.  Since  if  you  take  away  our  heavenly  aspirations  and 
call  them  folly,  you  take  away  our  title-deeds,  and  leave  us  de- 
prived of  inheritance,  the  most  forlorn  and  miserable  of  mere 
animal's  fated  to  enjoy  life  a  moment  and  sink  down  for  ever 
into  nothingness.  But,  indeed,  this  is  to  ignore  completely  our 
very  nature ;  and  thus  to  remove  from  us  the  sphere  of  the 
supernatural  is  to  deny  the  highest  prerogatives  of  human  kind. 

Nay,  we  cannot  remain  even  here,  and  be  satisfied  with  so  suf- 
ficient an  answer  to  the  pretended  objection  previously  record- 
ed. We  answer  again  with  more  emphasis :  Our  assertion — with 
respect  to  a  primitive  communication  of  heaven  with  man — we 
have  proved  by  facts  and  texts,  and  the  same  facts  and  texts  have 
disproved  yours.  If  the  history  of  man  is  not  such  as  we  de- 
scribed, it  may  be,  we  confess,  such  as  you  depict.  But  is  there 
a  line  in  this  volume  which  does  not  contradict  your  positions  ? 
and  is  the  whole  amount  of  facts  it  contains  assailable  by  any- 
thing you  can  bring  forward  ?  More,  you  falsely  pretend  that 
you  have  science  on  your  side ;  it  is  on  ours  undoubtedly  ;  for 
nearly  all,  if  not  all,  the  facts  recorded  in  these  pages,  are  either 
the  direct  result  of  impartial  scientific  inquiry  into  the  annals 
of  primitive  nations,  or  the  evident  consequences  drawn  from 
those  inquiries.  The  supernatural  question  is,  therefore,  de- 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  479 

cided  even  scientifically ;  and  the  more  these  questions  into 
the  origin  of  man  will  be  studied,  the  nearer  will  the  con- 
clusion come  to  our  Bible  records ;  then  there  will  be  a  perfect 
agreement — as  it  is  proper  it  should  be — between  science  an  I 
revelation. 

But,  besides  these  individual  researches  of  some  learned  men 
of  great  erudition  and  impartiality,  our  own  decision  of  the 
question,  such  as  we  have  briefly  attempted  it,  rests  likewise  on 
the  universal  assent  of  all  nations,  among  whom  the  great 
dogma,  that  God  created  man,  spoke  to  him,  directs  him,  is  the 
fountain  of  truth,  and  the  rewarder  of  virtue,  has,  primi- 
tively at  least,  been  admitted  everywhere.  This  book,  after 
all,  is  but  the  humble  index  of  the  thoughts  of  mankind.  In 
it  man  himself  speaks  and  acts ;  and  humanity  has  always  re- 
jected with  scorn  any  religion  which  is  not  supernatural.  Men 
have  said  that  it  was  a  human  religion,  and  this  was  sufficient 
for  its  condemnation.  It  was  reserved  to  our  age  to  proclaim 
religion  as  not  coming  from  God ;  and  to  reject  whatever  bears 
His  holy  name,  as  unscientific  —  unscientific,  because  permit- 
ting us  to  explain  the  existence  of  the  world  by  a  superhuman 
agency ;  as  if  it  were  not  the  height  of  folly  to  pretend  to  give 
the  reason  of  it  without  a  Maker  and  a  Master,  that  is,  without 
a  Cause  and  a  Lawgiver ! 

But  if  such  a  pretension  is,  and  has  always  been,  considered 
as  the  abjuration  of  common  sense  ;  if  it  is  a  strong  proof,  on 
the  contrary,  of  a  well-balanced  mind,  to  acknowledge  that  this 
world  must  have  had  a  Creator,  and  man  a  Heavenly  Father ; 
then  the  assertion  of  a  primitive  revelation  is  but  a  natural 
consequence  of  this  belief,  and  the  very  fact  of  it  must  be  con- 
sidered as  proved.  For  how  can  we  prove  that  God  has  spoken 
to  man,  except,  first,  by  the  unanimous  consent  of  mankind  on 
the  subject ;  second,  by  the  doctrine  itself  communicated  to 
man  primitively,  and  evidently  worthy  of  God ;  third,  by  the 
innate  consciousness  of  each  of  us,  that  if  God  has  made  us, 
32 


480  GENTILISM. 

He  must  take  care  of  us,  and  intimate  to  us  His  holy  will  that 
we  may  not  go  counter  to  it  ?  Our  arguments  are  directed 
here  to  non-Christians ;  the  children  of  the  Church  have  the 
word*  of  their  Mother. 

But  the  objection  states  further,  that,  in  this  case,  man,  un- 
able to  develop  his  own  destin;f  by  his  own  efforts,  is  con- 
stantly and  naturally  engaged  in  a  struggle  with  his  Master, 
yet  finally  conquers  Him,  to  fall  directly  a  prey  to  his  own 
degraded  passions.  This,  as  usual  with  rationalistic  thinkers, 
represents  human  history  under  a  false  light  by  merely  giving 
an  absurd  correlation  to  the  two  great  agents  of  its  develop- 
ment. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  two  real  agents  in  it,  God  and  Man. 
The  rationalist  and  evolutionist  philosophers  suppress  one  of 
the  terms,  God,  and  think  they  have  admirably  simplified  the 
problem,  and  given  to  the  second  term,  Man,  a  sublime  position 
on  earth,  making  him  independent  of  any  Master,  and  the  only 
manager  of  his  own  destiny.  "We  have  sufficiently  spoken  of 
this  "  proud  elevation."  But  we  complain  that  God  and  man 
are  spoken  of  by  the  evolutionists  as  if  we  made  them  equal 
agents  in  the  history  of  the  world,  and  each  independent  of 
the  other;  struggling  together,  alternately  victorious  or  con- 
quered. This  is  not  the  view  we  have  taken  of  human  history 
in  this  volume. 

Man,  in  our  mind,  has  a  sublime  position  on  earth.  He  is, 
even  after  his  fall,  the  true  king  of  creation,  and  has  yet  do- 
minion over  all  inferior  creatures;  he  is,  moreover,  a  free 
agent ;  and  the  consciousness  of  this  eminent  prerogative 
obliges  him  to  call  himself  constantly  to  a  strict  accountability 
for  all  his  actions.  For  both  his  dominion  over  the  world,  and 
his  high  endowment  of  a  free  will,  he  must  own  himself  in- 
debted to  a  Superior  Being,  with  whom  it  would  be  sacrilegious 
in  him  to  claim  any  sort  of  equality.  His  own  conscience 
teaches  him  that  he  will  have  to  give  an  account  of  himself, 


SUPPLEMENT  AEY.  481 

and  show  what  use  he  made  of  his  own  superiority  over  other 
creatures,  and  of  his  freedom  of  choice  in  all  his  actions. 
Both  are  immense  prerogatives  granted  him  by  his  Maker ; 
they  give  him  an  almost  absolute  power  over  the  world,  and 
by  them,  we  may  say,  the  history  of  this  globe  and  of  its  in- 
habitants is  left  to  him.  'When  he  follows  the  will  of  God  in 
the  proper  use  of  these  .two  eminent  attributions,  he  rises  in 
true  civilization,  aiid  preserves  the  gifts  he  had  originally 
received.  Should  he,  on  the  contrary,  abuse  his  power,  he  is 
not  '  victorious  over  God,'  who  always  remain  infinitely  above 
him  ;  but  he  only  '  resists  God/  and  in  doing  so  he  degrades 
himself,  and  would  fall  gradually  to  the  level  of  the  brute,  if 
God  had  not  pity  of  him  and  did  not  raise  him  again  every 
time  he  stumbles. 

Thus  the  Creator  had  been  infinitely  good  to  him  at  the  be- 
ginning, and  continues  to  help  him  all  along,  even  when  he 
least  deserves  it.  This  help  the  theologians  call  divine  grace 
which  is  never  denied  in  this  life,  and  which  is  derived  for  us 
from  the  merits  of  a  Redeemer  who  died  for  all,  even  for 
those  that  lived  before  His  coming,  or  who  refuse  His  help. 

This  is  the  only  "  struggle  "  we  can  admit  between  God  and 
Man  in  the  drama  of  human  history ;  a  struggle  of  infinite 
mercy  on  one  side,  of  'repeated  ingratitude  on  the  other  ;  end- 
ing always  in  a  higher  boon  on  the  part  of  God,  when  man  has 
reached  the  lowest  depth  of  misery.  This  was  seen  first  after 
the  flood,  when  the  patriarchal  religion  and  civilization  were 
granted  anew  to  the  only  human  family  that  remained ; 
secondly,  at  the  call  of  Abraham,  when  a  nation  was  taken 
apart  to  preserve  intact  the  great  truths  required  absolutely 
for  the  existence  of  man  as  a  superior  being.  The  Mosaic  law 
was  given  later  to  last  until  a  more  profound  degeneracy  should 
require  a  more  potent  remedy.  This,  fourthly,  brought  from 
heaven  the  only  One  to  whom  the  inheritance  of  the  nations 
had  been  promised  from  the  beginning. 


482  GEISTTILISM. 

This  is  the  way  Christians  have  always  understood  the  action 
of  both  God  and  Man  in  the  world  ;  and  this  action  supposes, 
necessarily,  a  supernatural  relation  between  both ;  supernatural, 
we  mean,  on  the  part  of  man  who  had,  from  his  own,  no  title 
to  such  a  favor,  to  a  divine  help  so  constant,  so  universal,  so 
adequate  to  all  his  needs. 

Gentilism  has  proved  this  with  respect  to  the  original  mercy 
of  God  in  granting  to  all  men  the  really  supernatural  boon  of 
true  religion  and  morality.  And  it  has  proved  it,  likewise, 
with  respect  to  the  law  of  degeneracy,  as  we  called  it,  on  the 
part  of  man,  unable  or  unwilling  to  keep  in  their  purity  the 
primitive  gifts  he  had  received,  and  constantly  falling  down 
deeper  and  deeper,  until  real  religion  almost  disappeared,  and 
moral  corruption  nearly  totally  destroyed  human  conscience. 

Then,  indeed,  the  need  of  heavenly  help  was  greater  than 
ever  ;  and  it  was  given  also  more  abundantly  than  at  any  pre- 
vious epoch.  If  the  all-merciful  action  of  God  on  human  his- 
tory was  undeniable  in  the  facts  recorded  in  these  pages,  it  be- 
came at  once  overwhelmingly  manifest  in  the  establishment  of 
Christianity  and  the  sudden  destruction  of  idolatry.  Considered 
only  as  a  turning-point  in  human  history,  Christianity  cannot 
be  explained  without  an  influence  far  higher  than  that  of  man. 
In  the  supposition  that  this  world  has  been  left  altogether 
to  human  agency,  that  no  action  of  a  superior  being  is  re- 
quired to  understand  the  totality  of  its  annals,  that  science 
ought  to  clear  up  every  difficulty,  and  to  show  independently 
of  a  heavenly  power  how  every  change  has  taken  place  on 
earth,  at  any  period  of  its  history,  It  can  be  maintained  that 
the  task  would  be  perfectly  hopeless  when  it  is  question  of  the 
conversion  of  mankind  to  God.  What  contributes  to  deceive 
people  in  this  regard,  is  that  they  imagine  the  character  of 
Christ  can  be  reduced  to  the  level  of  a  merely  human  character. 
All  those  who  have  undertaken  to  do  so  have  falsified  the  his- 
tory of  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God.  His  divinity  is  as  clear  as 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  483 

the  raid-day  sunlight,  and  from  it  the  mission  of  His  apostles 
and  their  success  becomes  undeniable  and  really  supernatural. 
But  this  is  not  the  place  to  develop  these  few  thoughts.  All 
that  needs  be  said  is  that  the  divine  action  in  the  primitive 
revelation  granted  to  man  is  evident  from  the  long  subsequent 
revelation  of  God  through  Christ ;  for  both  are  so  intimately 
connected  as  to  form  a  perfect  whnle,  whose  parts  cannot  be 
dissociated. 

If  the  traditions  so  often  mentioned  in  this  volume,  as  uni- 
versal among  ah1  primitive  nations,  had  any  value,  and  be- 
longed to  the  history  of  the  race,  they  recorded  facts,  dating 
from  the  very  beginning  of  mankind;  among  others,  a  fall 
from  original  innocence,  a  state  of  sin  and  bondage  inducing  a 
curse  from  which  man  could  not  be  disenthralled,  except  by 
a  future  liberator ;  and  all  this  was  to  come  from  the  infinite 
mercy  of  God.  The  bonds  of  union  between  the  Creator  and 
man,  as  revealed  in  those  traditions,  had  been  violently  broken 
asunder,  and  the  links  of  the  chain  could  not  be  bound  up 
together  again  except  by  a  heavenly  intervention.  All  nations, 
at  the  time  of  Christ,  were  in  truth  waiting  for  a  Redeemer, 
and  their  expectation  included  an  interposition  from  above.  In 
the  copy  of  those  ancient  records  which  Virgil  possessed,  it  was 
"Virgin  Astrsea  who  would  c:me  down  from  heaven,  and  bring 
back  on  earth  the  former  golden  age.  It  is  evident  that  this 
last  state  would  be  supernatural,  and  raise  man  to  a  higher  posi- 
tion than  he  could  ever  have  expected,  if  left  to  his  own 
earthly  condition.  The  end  of  the  series,  supposing  thus  the 
intervention  of  God,  the  whole  of  it  belonged  to  a  world  higher 
than  this ;  and  consequently  the  essential  character  of  the  prim- 
itive traditions  was  of  a  supernatural  nature,  and  cannot  be 
inclosed  within  the  limits  of  what  is  now  called  science.  But 
what  is  more,  the  objection  raised  against  the  scheme  of  revela- 
tion, could  thus  be  turned  against  the  scientists  with  a  tenfold 
greater  force,  and  we  might  tell  them :  Your  knowledge  of 


484  GENTILISM. 

man  supposes  only  physics  and  zoology  to  explain  his  origin 
and  destiny ;  yet  all  the  annals,  traditions,  beliefs  of  the  race 
proclaim  a  much  high  r  range  of  qualities  for  both,  and  all  its 
aspirations  protest  against  such  a  low  estimate  of  its  worth  as 
this.  Without  a  heavenly  term  at  the  beginning  of  the  series, 
and  a  much  brighter  one  at  the  end,  man  remains  an  enigma, 
and  cannot  be  explained  at  all.  Therefore,  by  the  very  act  of 
rejecting  the  supernatural  in  taking  a  serious  account  of  him, 
you  commit  suicide  as  scientists,  and  deprive  yourselves  of  the 
only  means  of  judging  rightly  of  our  humanity. 

This  is  so  evident  that  it  is  an  easy  task  to  compare  patri- 
archal religion,  as  we  have  called  it,  with  Christianity,  and  to  see 
the  perfect  analogy  of  both,  on  account  precisely  of  their  super- 
natural character,  without  which  both  the  ancient  and  modern 
history  of  the  race  remain  inexplicable. 

First,  the  primitive  religion  of  mankind  was,  in  essentials, 
the  same  for  all  nations,  and  would  have  kept  the  human  fam- 
ily united,  if  pantheism  and  idolatry  had  not  supervened,  and 
multiplied  to  the  last  degree  the  seeds  of  division  already  sown 
by  diversity  of  language,  of  race,  and  of  private  interests. 
Unity  in  religion,  if  it  had  lasted,  would  have  counteracted  all  the 
other  sources  of  contention  among  men ;  at  least,  they  would  nev- 
er have  forgotten  altogether  that  they  were  the  children  of  com- 
mon parents,  had  they  continued  to  worship  at  the  same  altars, 
and  to  adore  the  same  God.  This  primitive  unity  of  belief, 
such  as  it  was,  prevented,  at  least  for  many  ages,  the  flood,  of 
moral  corruption,  and  of  dark  superstition  from  deluging  the 
world ;  and  it  was  only  when  division  had  been  carried  to  its 
last  limits  that  the  total  dissolution  of  society  was  threatened 
by  the  excess  of  the  evil  then  existing.  This  has  been  proved. 

In  our  modern  times  we  see  the  Church,  universal  also,  and 
prescribing  to  her  children  the  same  faith  and  the  same  rites. 
We  thus  contemplate  a  strict  moral  society  in  which  men  are 
united  more  strongly  than  by  the  bonds  of  politics  or  temporal 


SUPPLEMENTARY.  485 

interests.  The  various  nations  which  compose  the  population 
of  the  globe  furnish  to  the  time  faith  a  greater  or  a  smaller 
number  of  firm  adherents,  so  as  to  exhibit  the  elements  of  a 
really  universal  society,  and  fulfilling  to  a  ceitain  degree  the 
promises  of  old  seers  who  have  announced  the  reconstruction 
of  primitive  unity  in  the  human  family.  Catholicity,  or  uni- 
versality, becomes  thus  a  characteristic  mark  of  regenerated  hu- 
manity, both  in  the  patriarchal  period  and  in  our  Christian 
times.  But  in  the  one  as  in  the  other  this  mark  partakes  of  a 
supernatural  character,  and  cannot  be  even  imagined  if  man  is 
left  to  his  own  efforts,  without  the  co-operation  of  heaven.  It 
is,  in  fact,  by  this  co-operation  alone  that  it  is  secured. 

Secondly,  in  those  ancient  times,  which  it  has  been  a  pleasure 
for  us  to  study,  we  have  universally  admired  a  pure  morality 
go  constant,  and  exalted,  that  it  has  become  a  part  of  public 
opinion — if  we  may  use  that  expression — to  attach  to  a  patri- 
archal state  of  society  the  idea  of  purity  of  manners  and  holiness 
of  life.  In  the  Christian  Church,  likewise,  we  admire  the  gift 
of  sanctity  which  all  the  calumnies  of  men  cannot  take  away 
from  her.  But  this  also  supposes,  on  the  part  of  God,  a  super- 
natural assistance,  to  keep  up  constarftly  the  character  of  Holi- 
ness. This  the  history  of  the  Church  can  prove. 

Finally,  in  a  third  place,  a  struggle,  constant,  terrible,  preg- 
nant with  the  most  serious  consequences  for  humanity,  has 
been  witnessed  going  on  in  the  patriarchal  period,  between 
Truth  as  coming  from  God  and  derived  from  heaven,  and 
Error  as  suggested  by  the  Evil  One,  and  embraced  by  deluded 
idolaters.  In  the  modern  Church  a  constant  hostility,  also,  is  re- 
marked as  developed  throughout  all  ages,  showing  the  Church 
standing  in  front  of  a  hostile  world,  and  conquering  the  more 
that  she  is  the  more  assailed.  The  parallel  between  both 
periods  could  not  be  perfectly  sustained,  as  the  first  had  not 
received  any  promise  of  sure  victory.  But  it  has  been  granted 
to  the  Christian  Church,  which  thus  enjoys  the  privilege  of 


486  GENTILISM. 

perpetuity.  In  both  certainly,  as  long  as  the  struggle  lasts, 
the  intervention  and  help  of  heaven  is  required ;  and  thus  in 
whatever  aspect  we  may  look  at  the  question,  the  supernatural 
character  comes  uppermost,  and  refuses  to  be  separated  from  it. 
This,  of  course,  would  require  most  ample  considerations  and 
developments. 

Nothing,  however,  is  so  manifest  as  the  truth  that  human 
history  is  enacted  by  a  mechanism  which  requires  -a  double 
spring  of  action,  that  of  God  and  that  of  man.  Take  away 
either  of  them,  human  history  is  impossible  to  narrate.  Take 
away  God  for  instance,  and  this  world  is  reduced  almost  to  a 
puppet-show.  The  strings,  no  doubt,  are  not  merely  made  of 
hemp  or  wire ;  they  belong  really  to  the  native  energy  of  the 
puppets  who  act  from  their  own  impulse,  and  ssem  to  be 
enacting  a  powerful  drama.  But,  be  sure  of  it,  dear  reader, 
only  those  who  propose  to  themselves  to  do  the  will  of  their 
Father  in  heaven,  who  act  in  conformity  with  it,  and  place 
themselves  altogether  under  His  guidance,  are  real  men,  and 
not  puppets.  For,  the  drama  in  reality  is  planned  in  the  upper 
regions,  and  God  himself  directs  it.  He  has  not  left  this  little 
globe  to  the  mercy  of  mad  people  or  of  fools.  He  has  given 
free  will  to  these,  it  is  true,  and  allows  them  to  play  occasion- 
ally so  as  "  to  make  angels  weep,"  as  a  great  poet  has  said. 
But  when  they  go  too  far  in  their  absurd  antics,  He  knows 
how  to  bring  them  to  reason.  He  sends  the  Goths  or  the  Tar- 
tars on  their  devastating  career,  and  a  new,  and  bright,  and 
truly  civilized  world  comes  out  of  the  ashes  of  the  previous 
corrupt  one.  And  the  old  Egyptian  priest  was  not,  after  all, 
altogether  wrong  when  he  said  that  "  when  the  gods,  to  purify 
the  earth,  deluge  its  surface  with  water  ....  then  cities  are 
hurried  away  to  the  sea  by  the  impetuosity  of  the  waters  . . . ." 
And  sometimes,  "periodically,  a  current  from  heaven  rushes 
on  nations  like  a  pestilence,  which  at  once  destroys  them  and 
their  annals." 


APPENDIX   I. 


ON  THE  SIMILARITY  OF  THE  INSTITUTIONS  IN  PRIMITIVE  HINDOSTAN  AND 
THE  FORMER  CELTIC  COUNTRIES  REFERRED  TO  AT  PAGE  79. 


APPENDIX  I. 

ON  THE   SIMILARITY  OP  THE   INSTITUTIONS   IN  PRIMITIVE  HINDOSTAN  AND 
THE   FORMER   CELTIC   COUNTRIES,   REFERRED    TO  AT  PAGE   79. 

IT  is  extremely  curious  and  pregnant  with  a  deep  interest  to 
consider  two  countries  so  wide  apart  as  Hindostan,  and  the  ex- 
treme west  of  Europe,  yet  existing  for  many  ages  under  the 
same  institutions,  .although  the  peoples  themselves  differed  so 
totally  in  character.  The  conclusion  forces  itself  directly  upon 
the  mind  that  mankind  must  have  been  one  at  first,  chiefly 
when  a  deeper  study  still  shows  that  the  intervening  nations 
exhibited  in  ancient  times  a  great  approach  to  the  same  social 
state. 

And,  first,  the  three  superior  castes  in  India,  namely  : 
the  Brahmins,  the  Cshastriyas,  and  the  Vaysias,  present  them- 
selves at  once  as  the  prototypes  of  the  Druids,  the  warrior 
class,  and  the  common  clansmen  in  Celtic  countries.  The 
Sudras  in  Hindostan,  were  evidently,  chiefly  in  old  times,  real 
outcasts  not  belonging  strictly  to  the  nation  because  not  re- 
generated, and  answering,  to  a  certain  extent,  to  the  slaves  of 
the  Celts.  The  Pariahs  were  then  called  Chandalas,  the  most 
degraded  of  human  beings,  excluded  almost  from  the  thoughts 
of  the  Hindoos. 

But  this  general  outlook  might  be  the  result  of  chance,  and 
would  not  suffice  certainly  to  establish  a  general  theory  on  the 
primitive  social  state  of  man.  It  must  be  worked  out  in  de- 
tail to  bring  conviction ;  and  this  we  intend  to  do,  as  briefly 
as  possible,  in  this  short  Appendix. 

Our  chief  authority  for  the  side  of  the  picture  which  con- 

(489) 


490  GENTILISM. 

cerns  Hindostan,  shall  be  the  venerable  Institutes  or  Laws  of 
Menu ;  the  other  side  is  naturally  supplied  by  the  knowledge 
now  universal  almost  of  the  social  state  of  the  Celts. 

As  some  of  our  readers  may  be  altogether  unacquainted  with 
the  Menu  Code,  it  is  proper  to  say  first  a  few  words  on  the 
subject.  The  Hindoos  firmly  believed  that  the  work  was  the 
production  of  Menu — generally  it  is  now  spelt  Manu ;  we  keep 
the  orthography  to  which  we  have  been  for  a  long  time  accus- 
tomed. This  great  lawgiver  is  said,  of  course,  by  the  Hindoos 
to  have  been  the  son  or  grandson  of  Brahrna,  the  first  of  created 
beings,  a  god  himself,  and  the  progenitor  of  mankind.  Manu 
in  fact  means  man.  We  may  consider  him — if  we  wish  to 
identify  ourselves  with  Hindoo  feeling — as  Adam,  the  father  of 
the  human  race.  It  is  of  course  a  mistake  on  the  part  of  the 
Indians ;  Menu,  the  author  of  the  Code,  is  not  so  ancient.  Sir 
William  Jones  examines,  if  he  is  not  the  same  as  the  fabulous 
Minos  of  Crete,  or  the  Egyptian  Mneues,  the  first  lawgiver 
according  to  Diodorus. 

That  the  book  is  of  great  antiquity  there  can  be  no  doubt. 
It  is  written  in  the  archaic  Sanscrit  of  the  first  three  Vedas ; 
and  it  is  supposed  by  modern  critics  to  have  been  composed  a 
few  centuries  after  those  celebrated  books.  Sir  William  Jones 
makes  it  300  years  posterior  to  the  Yajur  Yeda,  which  he  thinks 
may  have  been  written  1580  years  before  Christ.  But  Hindoo 
chronology  has  been  found  to  be  perfectly  unsafe  ;  and  those 
conjectures  are  now  discarded.  The  English  translation,  pub- 
lished at  the  beginning  of  this  century  by  the  founder  of  the 
Asiatic  Society  of  Calcutta,  is  still  considered  as  sure  and  re- 
liable, and  we  will  use  it. 

The  caste,  or  rather  class,  of  Brahmins,  as  it  is  called  by 
Menu,  had,  at  least  in  primitive  times,  'so  many  characters  alike 
to  those  of  the  Druids  in  Gaul  and  Britain,  and  of  the  Ollamhs 
in  Ireland,  that  with  the  least  acquaintance  with  both  of  these, 
one  is  struck  at  once  as  if  they  were  almost  identical. 


APPENDIX    I.  491 

1st.  Tp  become  a  Druid  or  an  Ollamh,  required  from  six- 
teen to  twenty  years ;  let  us  now  hear  Menu,  Chap.  Ill,  1 : 

"  The  discipline  of  a  student  (for  the  Brahminical  order) 
may  be  continued  for  thirty-six  years  in  the  house  of  his  pre- 
ceptor ;  or  for  half  that  time  (eighteen  years),  or  for  a  quarter 
of  it."'  Many  other  passages  concur  with  this. 

2d.  The  Celtic  student  had  to  receive  the  oral  teaching  of 
an  ordained  'Druid  or  Ollamh,  as  the  sacred  books  in  Celtic 
countries  were  not  written,  but  committed  to  memory  and 
transmitted  through  tradition.  In  primitive  Hindostan  the 
law  of  Menu  declared,  II.,  116 : 

"  The  student  who  shall  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  Vedas 
without  the  assent  of  his  preceptor,  incurs  the  guilt  of  stealing 
the  Scriptures."  The  result  in  both  cases  was  the  same :  au- 
thorized teaching,  safety  from  heterodox  interpretation. 

3d.  The  attestation  of  "  purity "  in  various  things  required 
of  an  Ollamh,  or  of  a  learned  man  in  an  inferior  degree,  is 
well  known  to  anyone  versed  in  Celtic  lore.  In  the  Code  of 
Menu  nothing  is  so  remarkable  as  the  insistence  on  the  moral 
purity  of  every  degree  required  of  a  Brahmin,  or  of  a  student 
for  the  Braminical  order,  II.  88  :  "  In  restraining  the  organs, 
which  run  wild  among  ravishing  sensualities,  a  wiseman  " — it 
is  question  here  of  Brahmins — "  will  apply  diligent  care,  like  a 
charioteer  in  managing  restive  horses."  What  are  those  or- 
gans ?  The  author  explains  in  the  following  paragraphs  that 
they  are  those  of  sense — the  five  senses  of  the  body — and  those 
of  action,  besides  the  heart.  Then  he  goes  on  to  say :  97 :  "  To  a 
man  contaminated  by  sensuality  neither  the  Yedas,  nor  liber- 
ality, nor  sacrifices,  nor  strict  observances,  nor  pious  austerities, 
ever  procure  felicity ;"  and  100 :  "  Having  kept  all  his  mem- 
bers of  sense  and  action  under  control,  and  obtained  also  com- 
mand over  his  heart,  he  will  enjoy  every  advantage,  even 
though  he  reduce  not  his  body  by  religious  austerities."  104 : 
"  Xear  pure  water,  with  his  organs  holden  under  control,  and 


492  GENTILISM. 

retiring  to  some  unfrequented  place,  let  him  pronounce  the  gay- 
atri,  performing  daily  ceremonies."  The  reader  will  remember 
that  the  Ollamh  in  Ireland,  had  to  prove  for  himself  purity  of 
mouth,  purity  of  hand,  purity  of  conjugal  union,  and  purity  of 
body. 

4th.  What  was  the  course  of  studies  for  the  Brahmin,  and 

• 

was  it  analogous  to  that  of  the  Celtic  Druid  ?  Many  passages 
of  the  laws  of  Menu  conclusively  show  that  it  was  comprised 
in  the  "  universal "  Yedas.  '  These  included  the  mantras  and 
brahmanas,  an  immense  collection  of  many  diversified  rites 
and  prayers  for  the  worship  of  God;  the  upanishads,  long 
treatises  of  cosmology  and  philosophy ;  and  the  Vedangas,  or 
books  on  grammar,  prosody,  astronomy,  mathematics,  etc. 
These  last,  it  is  true,  did  not  belong  to  the  Yedas  properly  so 
called :  yet  they  were  as  ancient  as  these,  and  formed  also  an  es- 
sential part  of  the  studies  of  Brahmins,  since  the  laws  of  Menu, 
II.,  105,  say:  "  In  reading  the  Vedangas,  or  even  such  parts 
of  the  Vedas  as  ought  constantly  to  be  read,  there  is  no  prohibi- 
tion of  particular  days,  nor  obligation  to  pronounce  the  texts 
appointed  for  oblations  to  fire."  It  may,  therefore,  only  be 
said,  that  they  were  not  of  so  sacred  a  character  as  the  parts  of 
the  holy  books,  which  could  npt  be  read  on  .certain  days,  nor 
during  storms,  etc.  We  know  from  J.  Caesar  that  the  curri- 
culum of  the  Druidic  schools  in  Gaul  was  exactly  the  same, 
although  certainly  the  religious  rites  were  not  so  various  and 
minute,  and  the  prayers  probably  were  not  so  long  and  diver- 
sified. The  copy  of  the  Yedas  preserved  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum forms  eleven  very  large  volumes,  brought  from  India  by 
the  Swiss  Col.  Polier.  The  text  delivered,  orally,  by  the 
Druid  teachers  to  their  pupils  may  not  have  been  so  volumi- 
nous, but  it  comprised  exactly  the  same  course  of  studies :  re- 
ligion, cosmogony,  physics,  astronomy,  and  grammar. 

The  comparison  could  be  carried  on  further,  and  a  great  deal 
more  could  be  said  on  the  authority  both  the  Brahmins  and  the 


APPENDIX    I.  493 

Druids  had  in  the  State,  chiefly  on  account  of  their  influence, 
through  religion,  over  the  rulers  and  kings.  Many  very  strik- 
ing texts  of  the  laws  of  Menu  could  be  brought  forward,  and 
the  conviction  of  the  reader  would  be  thereby  strengthened, 
but  our  limits  forbid  it ;  and  we  must  be  content,  on  this 
first  point,  to  remark,  in  general  that  the  genius  of  oriental  and 
southern  people,  being  so  different  from  that  of  western  and 
northern  races,  an  immense  number  of  details  contained  in 
Hindoo  literature  appear  on  the  surface  completely  at  variance 
with  what  we  know  of  the  old  Celtic  stock ;  but  the  difference 
lies  only  on  the  surface  ;  a  deeper  insight  into  the  thing  itself 
cannot  but  strike  an  intelligent  reader  and  show  him  a  large 
number  of  analogies  which  certainly  prove  an  almost  identity 
of  primitive  institutions.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  dif- 
ferences, however,  must  be  mentioned  in  a  few  words,  and  can 
easily  be  proved  not  to  conclude  in  the  least  against  our  posi- 
tion. It  is  this  :  The  Celts  had  a  great  number  of  historians  *_ 
from  the  oldest  times,  and  their  poetry  itself  was  history  in 
verse  ;  the  Hindoos  never  had  a  single  historian,  but  all  their 
writers  may  be  said  to  have  been  poets.  Yet  the  truth  is,  the 
Hindoos  thought  they  were  writing  history  when  they  com- 
posed those  immense  epic  poems  of  which  we  have  spoken. 
Their  exuberant  imagination  colored  everything,  and  rendered 
them  also  incapable  of  attending  to  chronology  ;  but  both  Celts 
and  Hindoos  were  profoundly  traditional  people,  and  in  this 
consists  the  true  spirit  of  history.  The  difference,  therefore,  is 
not  a  real  one,  and  our  opinion  remains  intact. 

It  will  become  yet  considerably  stronger  by  the  consideration 
of  the  Cshastriya  caste  compared  with  the  analogous  class  in 
Celtic  countries. 

And  first,  the  very  title  of  the  seventh  chapter  of  the  laws 
of  Menu  which  treats  of  the  subject,  is  extremely  suggestive 
and  appropriate.      It  reads :    "  On  Government  and  Public   ' 
Law  ;  or,  on  the  Military  Class."     The  clear  meaning  of  it 


494  GENTILISM. 

is  that  the  "  government "  of  the  people  was  in  the  hands  of 
"  the  military  class."  Hence  the  first  order,  that  of  the 
Brahmins,  had  nothing  to  do  with  "  government "  except  in- 
directly by  their  immense  influence,  the  necessary  result  of 
their  learned  and  religious  character.  The  leading  of  the  na- 
tion was,  in  fact,  in  the  hands  of  the  "warriors,"  called,  in 
Hindostan,  "  Cshastriya."  It  was  precisely  the  same  in  Celtic 
countries ;  the  kings,  rulers,  chieftains,  whatever  the  reader 
may  please  to  call  .them,  were  first  of  all  "  warriors ; "  their 
duty  was  to  defend  their  clan  by  the  force  of  arms.  The  Druids, 
so  influential  in  every  other  respect,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  commanding  of  armed  troops.  The  chieftains  chose  to 
help  them,  their  knights  of  the  red  branch,  their  Fenian  war- 
riors, the  boldest  and  nimblest  of  their  clansmen,  and  these 
formed  the  military  class  ;  the  sacerdotal  order  remained  com- 
pletely outside  of  warlike  organizations. 

In  Hindostan,  the  fact  is  most  striking — that  although  the 
Brahmin  class  is  everywhere  represented  so  far  above  all  the 
others,  that  it  was  said  to  have  proceeded  from  the  very  mouth 
of  Brahma,  yet  we  doubt  if  ever  a  Brahmin,  in  full  orders, 
ambitioned  the  high  station  of  king  and  attained  the  object  of 
his  ambition.  We  know  only  that  some  few  kings,  after  hav- 
ing ruled  the  State,  left  the  throne  through  piety  and  asked  to 
be  received  in  the  Brahminical  order.  But  these  very  rare  ex- 
ceptions show  the  strictness  of  the  rule.  Those  who  ruled  the 
nation  were  invariably  chosen  among  the  Cshastriya  class.  We 
never  hear  of  a  Brahmin  aspiring  to  it.  The  same  was  cer- 
tainly the  case  in  Celtic  countries. 

Many  details  contained  in  the  laws  of  Menu  contribute  to 
render  the  analogy  more  striking.  At  first  sight  it  seems,  from 
many  texts,  that  the  Hindoo  Rajah,  or  king,  was  a  despotic 
ruler,  which  the  Celtic  chieftain  was  not ;  but  a  closer  exami- 
nation shows  that  the  difference  is  only  apparent.  Both  had  a 
great  power  in  the  State ;  but  their  authority  was  not  despotic ; 


APPENDIX   I.  495 

far  from  it — it  was  limited  on  both  sides  by  the  influence  of 
the  sacerdotal  class,  and  likewise  by  the  obligation,  often 
repeated  in  the  laws  of  Menu,  to  regard  their  subordinates  as 
their  "  people,"  never  their  subjects,  and  to  "  defend  "  it — the 
people  —  at  the  expense  of  their  life.  The  Celtic  exclama- 
tion of  the  clansman  to  his  chieftain  is  well  known  :  "  Eat  me, 
but  defend  me ! " 

But  many  prescriptions  of  the  Hindoo  law,  with  respect 
to  the  private  life  of  the  Rajah,  place  the  subject  yet  in  a 
stronger  light.  Let  us  hear  some  of  them.  Chapter  vii.  69  : 
"  Let  him — the  king — fix  his  abode  in  a  district  of  a  champaign 
country,  abounding  with  grain,  inhabited  chiefly  by  the  vir- 
tuous, not  infected  with  maladies,  beautiful  to  the  sight,  sur- 
rounded by  submissive  mountaineers,  foresters,  or  other  neigh- 
bors ;  a  country  in  which  the  subject  may  live  at  ease."  No 
better  description  could  be  given  of  the  Irish  rath.  The  fol- 
lowing texts  complete  the  description :  "  73L  Foes  hurt  not  a 
king  who  has  taken  refuge  in  his  durga,  or  place  of  difficult 
access."  "  74.  One  bowman  placed  in  a  wall  is  a  match  in  war 
for  a  hundred  enemies,  etc."  "  75.  Let  that  fort  be  supplied 
with  weapons,  with  money,  with  grain,  with  beasts,  with  Brah- 
mins, with  artificers,  with  engines,  with  grass,  and  with 
water."  "  76.  In  the  centre  of  it  let  him  raise  his  own  palace, 
well  finished  in  all  its  parts,  completely  defended,  habitable  in 
every  season,  ....  surrounded  with  water  and  trees."  "  80. 
Plis  annual  revenue  he  may  receive  from  his  whole  dominion 
through  his  collectors  ;  but  let  him  in  this  world  observe  the 
divine  ordinances  ;  let  him  act  as  a  father  to  his  people" 

Is  not  the  whole  of  this  picture  Celtic  as  well  as  Hindoo  ? 
and  if  these  laws  do  not  rule  any  more  Hindostan,  for  how 
many  ages  did  they  not  flourish  ?  The  "  Eamayana,"  I.,  107, 
and  III.,  92,  describes  an  Indian  court  filled  with  poets,  pane- 
gyrists, Brahmins,  and  attendant  officers  of  every  description, 
and  the  whole  of  it  almost  could  be  transferred  to  Erin  in  the 
33 


496  .       GENTILISM. 

brilliant  times  of  her  Ard  Highs  without  violating  any  pro- 
priety. 

Ko  doubt  many  details  of  which  we  do  not  speak  presented 
a  very  different  aspect  in  each  of  the  two  countries ;  the 
climate,  the  wealth,  the  internal  commerce  of  the  immense 
peninsula  of  Hindostan  could  not  but  offer  a  scene  with  which 
no  Celtic  country  could  compete ;  but  our  object  is  to  show 
that  both  were  ruled  primitively  by  the  same  patriarchal  man- 
ners, and  we  think  we  have  said  enough  to  prove  it. 

A  word  on  the  two  last  Hindoo  castes  will  complete  the  dem- 
onstration. 

The  Yaiysia  class  was  composed  of  merchants  and  agricul- 
turists. The  merchants  of  India  dealt  certainly  in  richer  com- 
modities than  those  of  Celtic  countries.  Yet  it  is  very  remark- 
able that  in  both  cases  their  trade  was  altogether  interior  to  the 
country ;  they  seldom  ventured  on  ships  of  their  own  to 
foreign  territories.  The  exterior  trade  of  Hindostan,  chiefly  in 
the  primitive  ages,  was,  according  to  Heeren,  altogether  in  the 
hands  of  Arabians  and  Phoenicians  ;  and  it  is  well  known  that 
the  same  kind  of  commerce  in  the  West  of  Europe  was  entirely 
carried  on  by  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians,  the  Greeks  of  Mas- 
silia,  and  later  on  the  Scandinavians,  never  by  the  Celts  them- 
selves. The  coincidence  is  truly  striking. 

With  respect  to  the  agriculturists  and  graziers,  the  similarity 
is  almost  perfect.  There  is,  on  the  subject,  a  most  remarkable 
passage  in  Strabo's  Geography  (Book  xv.,  Chap,  i.,  §  49),  which 
deserves  certainly  to  be  quoted.  The  author  derived  his  infor- 
mation from  the  works  composed  by  the  companions  of  Alex- 
ander. That  information  was  often  unreliable,  on  account  of 
the  short  time  they  had  remained  in  the  country,  which  did  not 
allow  them  to  understand  perfectly  the  institutions  of  a  people 
so  different  from  the  Greeks  and  even  the  Persians.  But  on 
the  present  occasion  it  was  question  only  of  facts,  patent  to  all, 
and  which  they  witnessed  everywhere  in  the  country.  There 


APPENDIX    I.  497 

was  no  need  of  a  deep  study  to  understand  them ;  eye-sight 
was  all-sufficient.  Strabo  says:  "The  caste  of  husbandmen 
constitute  the  majority  of  natives ;  and  they  are  a  most  mild 
and  gentle  people,  as  they  are  exempted  from  military  service, 
and  cultivate  their  land  free  from  alarm  ;  they  do  not  resort  to 
cities,  either  to  transact  private  business  or  take  part  in  public 
tumults.  It  therefore  frequently  happens  that,  at  the  same 
time,  and  in  the  same  part  of  the  country,  one  body  of  men 
are  in  battle  array,  and  engaged  in  contests  with  the  enemy, 
while  others  are  ploughing  or  digging  in  security,  having  these 
soldiers  to-protect  them."  And  the  sixty-sixth  section  contain? 
the  following  remarkable  words :  "Among  some  tribes  the 
ground  is  cultivated  by  families  and  in  common  ;  when  the 
produce  is  collected,  each  takes  what  is  sufficient  for  his  sub- 
sistence during  the  year."  Everybody  has  read  exactly  similar 
facts  of  old  Erin. 

In  Celtic  countries  the  husbandmen,  as  all  clansmen,  might 
be  called  for  military  service,  but  this  was,  no  doubt,  the  excep- 
tion :  in  general  the  chieftain  was  surroundsd  with  his  knights^ 
his  heroes,  his  nobles,  who  fought  when  the  agriculturist 
ploughed,  sowed,  and  reaped.  The  remainder  of  the  descrip- 
tion is  perfect  in  its  application  to  Western  Europe  in  former 
times. 

What  is  said  by  Strabo  of  cities  requires  a  short  and  general 
remark.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  even  in  primitive  times, 
Hindostan  differed  considerably  from  the  West  of  Europe  in 
the  number,  extent,  and  wealth  of  her  cities.  But  was  there 
not  a  visible  cause  for  this  difference  \  Could  the  first  inhab- 
itants of  Eastern  India  live  apart  in  farm-houses,  with  the 
country  swarming  with  ferocious  animals  and  venomous  ser- 
pents \  Was  it  not  absolutely  required  of  those  who  first 
settled  in  the  country,  to  live  in  large  groups  for  self-protec- 
tion I  Yet  we  see  by  the  passage  of  Strabo  just  quoted  that 
there  was  in  fact,  for  long  ages,  a  disinclination  in  the  people 


498  GEKTILISM. 

for  city  life,  since  in  the  time  of  Alexander's  invasion  the  ma- 
jority of  the  natives  did  not  resort  to  cities  even  to  transact 
business,  so  much  did  they  like  country  life.  This  preference 
continues  even  to  this  day,  as  all  modern  travellers  have 
remarked. 

Another  apparent  dissimilarity  must  be  briefly  mentioned. 
We  know  that  music  had  become  in  Celtic  nations  a  State  in- 
stitution, and  that  the  fourth  order  of  Druids  was  composed  of 
the  v\ivr]~ai.  In  Hindostan,  on  the  contrary,  the  love  of  music 
was  considered,  according  to  the  laws  of  Menu,  as  a  vice  to  be 
discouraged  as  well  as  intemperance,  gambling,  etc.  But  the 
reason  might  be  only  the  effect  naturally  produced  on  human 
passions  by  soft  music  in  such  a  climate  as  that  of  the  East 
Indies.  That  such  was  probably  the  case  can  be  inferred  from 
the  fact  that  the  whole  Third  Yeda — the  Samaua — was  com- 
posed of  mantras  and  brahmanas,  to  be  sung  by  the  officiating 
Brahmin.  So  that  there  was  really  in  Hindostan  a  class  of 
vpvrjTcu  as  in  the  fourth  order  of  Braids,  and  singing  accom- 
panied probably  with  musical  instruments  composed  a  great 
part  of  the  religious  service.  To  this  day  it  is  well  known 
that,  chiefly  in  the  southern  part  of  the  great  peninsula,  where 
primitive  usages  have  been  less  interfered  with  by  the  numer- 
ous foreign  invasions,  the  processions,  the  religious  festivals  are 
always  accompanied  with  deafening  instruments,  which  may 
not  be  precisely  agreeable  to  European  tastes  but  which  are 
said  to  produce  real  harmony  for  the  devotees  of  Yishnu  and 
of  Chrishna ;  and  the  Catholic  Church  had  to  allow  the  intro- 
duction of  such  orchestras  in  her  temples.  Of  the  Sudras  and 
men  of  no  caste,  as  Pariahs  and  Chandalas,  the  only  thing 
our  space  allows  us  to  say  is,  that  they  replaced  in  old  Hindo- 
stan the  class  of  slaves  existing  in  ancient  Celtic  countries.  But 
they  were  not  properly  slaves,  so  that  strict  slavery  and  6ven 
serfdom  have  never  formed  a  part  of  the  institutions  of  India 
— the  same  as  among  Celtic  tribes. 


APPENDIX    I.  490 

It  remains  now  to  say  a  word  of  tlie  greatest  and  less  easily 
explained  dissimilarity  in  the  institutions  of  both  countries. 
In  Hindostan  there  were  strict  castes,  which  continue  to  this 
day,  and  oppose  an  almost  insurmountable  obstacle  to  the  identi- 
fication of  Hindoo  manners  with  those  of  Europeans.  This  has 
never  existed  in  Celtic  countries. 

What  was  the  origin  of  castes  in  Egypt  and  India?  Have 
they  been  in  force  in  those  countries  from  the  very  beginning? 
It  is  difficult  to  answer  these  questions.  It  seems  there  were 
no  strict  castes  In  Hindostan  when  the  Vedas  were  written. 
There  is  only  a  slight  indication  of  them  in  one  of  the  last 
prayers  of  the  Atharvan  Yeda,  and  it  is  conceded  that  this 
fourth  part  of  the  sacred  Hindoo  books  is  altogether  of  a  dif- 
ferent class  and  later  written  than  the  three  first.  !No  castes 
in  the  Vedic  period.  But  the  "  Institutes  of  Menu "  suppose 
them  constantly.  Their  origin,  consequently,  must  be  placed  iu 
the  interval  between  the  composition  of  the  three  first  Yedas 
and  the  publication  of  the  Menu  work.  That  interval  is  gener- 
ally supposed  to  have  been  of  three  hundred  years,  but  it  might 
have  been  more. 

It  seems  likewise  that  the  Sanscrit  word  used  for  caste  means 
literally  "  color ;"  color  consequently  must  have  heen  the  chief 
distinction  at  first ;  it  is  well  known  that  to  this  day  the  Brah- 
mins are  nearly  white  and  the  Sudras  of  a  very  dark  tint,  al- 
though there  are  exceptions  to  this  rule.  This  difference  in 
color  may  have  been  in  many  cases  the  result  of  their  various 
pursuits  in  life,  but  sometimes  also  arose  from  their  being  of 
different  race.  It  is  generally  supposed.-that  the  Pariahs,  called 
Chandalas  in  many  places,  were  originally  a  conquered  race,  re- 
duced to  the  state  of  outcasts  rather  than  to  that  of  slaves. 
The  Institutes  of  Menu  often  attribute  a  sensible  degradation 
in  the  human  form  to  a  simple  mixture  of  class ;  and  perhaps 
the  institution  of  castes  may  have  arisen  simply  from  the  de- 
eire  of  keeping  the  blood  of  the  nation  pure.  Hence  the  im- 


500  GENTILISM. 

mense  number  of  enactments  in  the  Hindoo  law  to  regulate  all 
the  details  of  marriage.  It  looks  as  if  all  the  attention  of  the 
lawgiver  was  directed  to  that  exclusiveness  which  is  likewise 
so  visible,  in  modern  times,  in  the  English  nation,  among  whom 
the  same  result  is  obtained  by  native  repugnance  and  not  by 
legal  enactments. 

In  Celtic  countries  nothing  of  the  kind  existed,  because  the 
blood  of  the  various  septs  was  supposed  to  be  of  equal  purity ; 
hence  the  general  features  remained  there  merely  clannish ;  in 
Hindostan  they  were  impregnated  with  the  exclusiveness  of 
caste ;  but  we  can  easily  understand  that  each  may  have  con- 
tinued to  be  a  primitive  and  patriarchal  people,  both  having 
so  many  things  in  common  that  the  remarkable  difference  in- 
troduced by  the  attention  to  purity  of  blood  in  one  of  them, 
may  not  have  prevented  them  from  living  truly  under  primeval 
and  in  all  other  respects  similar  institutions. 


APPENDIX   II. 


THE  PATKIAKCHAL  ORIGIN  OF  SOCEETT  PROVED  BY  THE  HISTORY  OF 
JURISPRUDENCE,  OR  ANCIENT  LAW. 


APPE]ST>IX  II. 

THE    PATRIAKCHAL  ORIGIN  OP    SOCIETY  PROVED    BY  THE  HISTORY  OP 
JURISPRUDENCE,  OR  ANCIENT  LAW. 

THE  very  remarkable  work  of  Henry  Siimner  Maine  on 
"  Ancient  Law,"  is  a  powerful  confirmation  of  our  conclusions 
from  general  history.  It  may  be  said  to  carry  them  up  to  the 
height  of  demonstration.  For  the  fact  of  the  same  laws  govern- 
ing all  nations  at  their  origin,  and  of  their  being  evidently  de- 
rived from  the  nature  of  the  family,  shows  more  conclusively 
that  mankind  began  by  clanship,  than  any  amount  of  particular 
facts  of  history  pointing  to  the  same  inference.  Law  is  a 
most  essential  part  of  the  life  of  nations,  and  proves  what 
they  were  a  great  deal  more  strictly  than  any  amount  of  par- 
ticular circumstances  from  their  annals  or  traditions.  On  this 
account  the  book  of  Mr.  Maine  is  of  extreme  importance,  and 
will  render  an  immense  service  to  the  cause  of  truth,  at  an 
epoch  when  the  most  subversive  doctrines  on  the  origin  of 
man,  and  on  the  primitive  institutions  that  governed  him,  are 
openly  advocated.  When  people  are  fully  aware  that,  every- 
where on  earth,  the  first  human  societies  were  tribal,  organized 
on  -the  same  pattern,  and  having  the  same  laws ;  they  will  con- 
clude naturally  that  mankind  came  from  a  single  pair;  and 
when,  moreover,  these  ancient  laws  are  shown  to  be  of  such  a 
character  that  those  of  old  Rome  and  of  modern  England  can 
be  proved  to  be  derived  from  them,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
they  were  not  made  for  barbarians.  Yet  this  is  the  open  ob- 
ject of  the  greatest  part  of  the  book  on  "Ancient  Law "  by 
Mr.  Maine. 

There  are  considerations  in  the  same  work  which  it  cannot 

(503) 


504  GENTILISM. 

be  our  purpose  to  discuss ;  they  are  addressed  to  lawyers,  and 
we  are  not  the  proper  judge  of  them.  '  Particularly  the  low 
opinion  the  author  seems  to  entertain  of  "  canon  law  "  is  start- 
ling for  us,  and  runs  counter  tt>  some  of  our  most  settled  con- 
victions. The  idea,  likewise,  that  law  did  not  come  origi- 
nally from  any  fixed  principles,  but  grew  gradually  from  the 
decisions  of  kings  or  chieftains,  who  were  alone  invested  with 
the  judiciary  power,  seems  to  us  opposed  to  the  opinion  of  the 
greatest  thinkers  of  all  ages  on  the  same  subject.  But,  we  re- 
peat it  again,  these  discussions  would  be  entirely  foreign  to 
our  purpose ;  and  the  author  did  not  surely  intend  to  adopt 
bluntly  ideas  sapping  at  the  very  foundation  of  any  system  of 
jurisprudence.  He  knew  as  well  as  any  jurist  of  ancient  or 
modern  times  that  anteriorly  to  any  law  on  earth  there  is  the 
"  eternal  law "  comprehending  all  the  axioms  of  right,  and 
without  which  all  the  decisions  of  judges  would  be  either  the 
blind  stroke  of  fatality,  or  the  irresponsible  dictate  of  despot- 
ism. Mr.  Maine  intended  probably  to  convey  to  his  readers 
the  exact  doctrine  on  the  subject  when  he  said,  that  "  When 
a  king  decided  a  dispute  by  a  sentence,  the  judgment  was  as- 
sumed to  be  the  result  of  direct  inspiration.  The  divine  agent, 
suggesting  judicial  awards  to  kings  or  to  gods,  the  greatest  of 
kings  was  Themis.  The  peculiarity  of  the  conception  is 
brought  out  by  the  use  of  the  plural.  Themistes,  Themises, 
the  plural  of  Themis,  are  the  awards  themselves,  divinely  dic- 
tated to  the  judge."  Mr.  Maine  had  thus  found  in  Homer  the 
right  conception  of  the  basis  of  law ;  but  he  might  have  devel-. 
oped  it  with  more  details  in  the  very  first  pages  of  his  book, 
and  thus  he  would  have  left  nothing  obscure  on  so  important  a 
subject.  The  "  inspiration"  of  judges  was  but  a  metaphor. 

This,  however,  does  not  lie  within  the  purpose  of  our  own 
investigations ;  but  when  the  author  of  "  Ancient  Law  ''  comes 
to  speak  of  what  is  really  of  interest  to  us,  then  there  is  scarcely 
any  obscurity  in  his  doctrine,  and  we  have  only  to  register  down 


APPENDIX    II.  505 

what  his  great  knowledge  of  the  history  of  jurisprudence  has 
found  out,  and  left  as  a  legacy  to  men  less  deeply  informed. 
He  seems  even  to  us  to  intimate  that  his  discovery  was  ob- 
tained almost  reluctantly,  and  could  not  be  very  popular,  on 
account  of  the  support  it  affords  to  Christian  truth.  On  this 
subject  his  very  words  must  be  quoted  from  his  fifth  chapter : 
"  The  effect  of  the  evidence  derived  from  comparative  juris- 
prudence is  to  establish  that  view  of  the  primeval  condition  of 
the  human  race  which  is  known  as  the  Patriarchal  Theory. 
There  is  no  doubt,  of  course,  that  this  theory  was  or  ginally 
based  on  the  Scriptural  history  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchs  in 
Lower  Asia ;  but  its  connection  with  Scripture  rather  militated 
than  otherwise  against  its  reception  as  a  complete  theory,  since 
the  majority  of  the  inquirers  who,  till  recently,  addressed  them- 
selves with  most  earnestness  to  the  colligation  of  social  phenom- 
ena, were  either  influenced  by  the  strongest  prejudice  against 
Hebrew  antiquities,  or  by  the  strongest  desire  to  construct  their 
systems  without  the  assistance  of  religious  records " — let  our 
readers  remark  this  naif  acknowledgment,  as  a  Frenchman 
would  say : — "  Even  now  there  is  perhaps  a  disposition  to  un- 
dervalue these  accounts,  or  rather  to  decline  generalizing  from 
them,  as  forming  part  of  the  traditions  of  a  Semitic  people.  It 
is  to  be  noted,  however,  that  the  legal  testimony  comes  nearly 
exclusively  from  the  institutions  of  societies  belonging  to  the 
Hindoo-European  stock,  the  Romans,  Hindoos,  and  Sclavo- 
iiians  supplying  the  greater  part  of  it;  and  indeed  the  diffi- 
culty, at  the  present  stage  of  the  inquiry,  is  to  know  where  to 
stop,  to  say  of  what  races  of  men  it  is  not  allowable  to  lay 
down  that  the  society  in  which  they  are  united  was  originally 
organized  on  the  patriarchal  model." 

This  is  certainly  a  very  remarkable  and  comprehensive  state- 
ment, which,  in  fact,  would  suffice  for  our  purpose,  and  allow 
us  to  consider  our  conclusions  on  the  subject  as  perfectly  dem- 
onstrated. Yet  it  will  become  of  a  more  satisfactory  character 


506  GEETILISM. 

still  by  entering  into  some  details,  and  following  the  author  of 
"  Ancient  Law "  in  his  very  interesting  discussion ;  allowing 
ourselves,  however,  the  liberty  of  appending  our  remarks  when 
occasion  shall  require. 

The  description  given  first,  of  a  patriarchal  family,  accord- 
ing to  Holy  Scripture,  is  so  well-known  that  it  needs  not  being 
reported  in  extenso  :  The  eldest  male  parent  absolutely  supreme 
over  his  children  as  over  his  slaves;  the  relations  of  sonship 
and  serfdom  scarcely  differing  beyond  the  capacity  of  the  child 
in  blood  becoming  one  day  the  head  of  a  family ;  the  posses- 
sions of  the  father  held  in  a  representative  rather  than  in  a 
proprietary  character,  equally  divided  at  his  death  among  his 
children — the  eldest  son  receiving  a  double  share  under  the 
name  of  birthright ;  finally,  the  State  or  commonwealth  orig- 
inating from  the  family  either  by  the  separation  of  two  chil- 
dren of  the  same  father  forming  two  nations,  as  Jacob  and 
Esau;  or  the  families  of  all  the  children  of  the  same  father 
becoming  one  people,  as  it  happened  with  respect  to  Jacob's 
posterity.  Let  us  see,  for  the  sake  of  comparison,  what  the 
history  of  other  nations,  outside  of  Judaism,  tells  us  of  their 
origin  ;  and  here  we  must  render  the  very  words  of  Mr.  Maine. 
After  having  quoted  three  lines  from  the  Odyssey  of  Homer, 
lie  comments  upon  them : 

"  These  verses  condense  in  themselves  the  sum  of  the  hints 
which  are  given  us  by  legal  authorities.  Men  are  first  seen 
distributed  in  perfectly  insulated  groups,  held  together  by 
obedience  to  the  parent.  Law  is  the  parent's  word,  but  it  is 
not  yet  in  the  condition  of  those  themistes  which  were  analyzed 
in  the  first  chapter  of  this  work.  When  we  go  forward  to  the 
state  of  society  in  which  these  early  legal  conceptions  show 
themselves  as  formed,  we  find  that  they  still  partake  of  the 
mystery  and  spontaneity  which  must  have  seemed  to  character- 
ize a  despotic  father's  commands,  but  that  at  the  same  time, 
inasmuch  as  they  proceed  from  a  Sovereign,  they  presuppose  a 


APPENDIX    II.  507 

union  of  family  groups  in  some  wider  organization.  The  next 
<|uestion  is,  What  is  the  nature  of  this  union  and  the  degree  of 
intimacy  which  it  involves  ?  It  is  just  here  that  archaic  law 
renders  us  one  of  the  greatest  of  its  services,  and  fills  up  a  gap 
which  otherwise  could  only  have  been  bridged  by  conjecture. 
It  is  full,  in  all  its  provinces,  of  the  clearest  indications  that 
society  in  primitive  times  was  not  what  it  is  assumed  to  be  at 
present,  a  collection  of  VtodividuaU.  In  fact,  and  in  view  of 
the  men  who  composed  it,  it  was  an  aggregation  of  families. 
The  contrast  may  be  most  forcibly  expressed  by  saying  that  the 
unit  of  an  ancient  society  was  the  Family,  of  a  modern  society 
the  Individual.  We  must  be  prepared  to  find  in  ancient  law 
all  the  consequences  of  this  difference." 

Mi1.  Maine  then  shows  how  far  these  "  consequences  "  went ; 
and  particularly  how  the  moral  elevation  and  the  moral  debase- 
ment of  the  individual  appear  to  be  confounded  with,  or  post- 
poned to,  the  merits  and  offenses  of  the  group  to  which  the 
individual  belongs ;  and  he  pretends  that  "  one  step  in  .the 
transition  from  the  ancient  and  simple  view  of  the  matter  to 
the  theological  and  metaphysical  explanation  of  later  days,  is 
marked  by  the  early  Greek  notion  of  an  inherited  curse."  Holy 
Scripture  is  as  emphatic  on  this  subject  as  any  "  early  Greek 
notion,"  and  we  see  clearly  in  the  Bible  that  in  the  various 
primitive  societies  there  described,  the  unit  was  not  the  Indi- 
vidual, but  the  Family ;  and,  consequently,  "  the  hints  given  us 
by  legal  authorities,"  in  this  regard,  are  exactly  reproduced  in 
Holy  Scripture ;  but  it  is  not  perfectly  exact  to  say  that  "  the 
ancient  and  simple  view  of  the  matter."  differed  in  the  least 
from  "  the  theological  and  metaphysical  explanation  of  later 
days,"  since  it  is  perfectly  clear  to  an  attentive  reader  of  anti- 
quity that  the  higher  we  go  in  it  the  stronger  we  find 
those  "  theological  and  metaphysical  explanations,"  or  rather 
suggestions ;  so  that  the  "  notion  of  an  inherited  curse  "  is  not 
"  one  step  down  in  the  transition "  from  the  ncient  to  the 


508  GENTILISM. 

more  recent,  but,  in  fact,  is  the  very  starting-point  from  which 
all  the  following  "  consequences "  were  derived.  But  apart 
from  this  observation  which  the  interests  of  truth  required  of 
us,  the  statements  of  Mr.  Maine  are  perfectly  fair  and  certainly 
full  of  a  deep  interest.  We  do  not  know  of  any  other  author 
•who  has  analyzed  so  exactly  this  feature  of  all  ancient  societies, 
and  a  few  sentences  which  we  must  yet  quote  are  certainly  very 
remarkable,  although  the  text  itself  alone  can  give  a  true  idea  of 
the  whole.  "  Corporations,"  he  says,  "  never  die,  and  accordingly 
primitive  law  considers  the  entities  with  which  it  deals,  i.e.,  the 
patriarchal  or  family  group,  as  perpetual  and  inextinguishable. 
This  view  is  closely  allied  to  the  peculiar  aspect  under  which, 
in  very  ancient  times,  moral  attributes  present  themselves.  .  .  . 
...  If  the  community  sins,  its  guilt  is  much  more  than  the 
sum  of  the  offenses  committed  by  its  members ;  the  crime  is  a 
corporate  act,  and  extends  in  its  consequences  to  many  more 
persons  than  have  shared  in  its  actual  perpetration.  If,  on  the 
otljer  hand,  the  individual  is  conspicuously  guilty,  it  is  his 
children,  his  kinsfolk,  his  tribesmen,  or  his  fellow-citizens,  who 
suffer  with  him,  and  sometimes  for  him." 

This  short  passage  throws  a  flood  of  light  on  many  points  of 
the  early  history  of  mankind,  and  of  the  Jewish  people,  con- 
tained in  the  Bible.  It  gives  a  full  answer  to  many  objections 
against  several  passages  of  the  Pentateuch  in  particular,  and 
thus  the  "  holy "  indignation  of  Voltaire  and  his  imitators 
against  the  destruction  of  some  Canaanite  tribes  in  Palestine, 
is  proved  to  be  merely  an  effect  of  the  profound  ignorance  of 
the  notorious  French  .writer  with  regard  to  antiquity  of  any 
kind,  but  particularly  to  religious  antiquity. 

But  the  work  of  Mr.  Maine  ought  to  be  read  attentively  in 
that  part  of  his  fifth  chapter  where  he  treats  of  the  old  Greek, 
and  chiefly  Roman  Jurisprudence.  To  many  a  student  of  law 
the  Roman  code  particularly  is  full  of  obscurity  on  many 
points  ;  and  the  commentaries  of  the  beet  jurists  have  scarcely 


APPENDIX    II.  509 

helped,  until  this  time,  to  clear  up  some  of  the  chief  difficul- 
ties. Mr.  Maine  has,  therefore,  rendered  an  immense  service 
to  those  who  wish  to  have  a  clear  view  of  the  laws  of  Rome, 
which  are  always,  after  all,  at  the  bottom  of  modem  lesral  en- 

v      *  '  O 

actments.  But  in  our  eyes  the  service  he  has  rendered  to 
ancient  history,  and  consequently  to  .the  vindication  of  the 
right  principles  concerning  human  origin  and  primitive  man- 
ners, is  yet  far  more  to  be  appreciated  and  gratefully  acknowl- 
edged. We  cannot  render  justice  to  this  part  of  his  work  by 
a  few  quotations ;  yet  it  is  impossible  not  to  mention  some  of 
the  chief  traits  of  the  discussion. 

"  In  most  of  the  Greek  States,"  he  says,  "  and  in  Rome, 
there  long  remained  the  vestiges  of  an  ascending  series  of 
groups,  out  of  which  the  State  was  at  first  constituted.  The 
Family,  House,  and  Tribe  of  the  Romans  may  be  taken  as  the 
type  of  them,  and  they  are  so  described  to  us  that  we  can 
scarcely  help  conceiving  them  as  a  system  of  concentric  circles 
which  have  gradually  expanded  from  the  same  point.  The 
elementary  group  is  the  Family,  connected  by  common  subjec- 
tion to  the  highest  male  ascendant.  The  aggregation  of 
Families  form  the  Gens,  or  House.  The  aggregation  of  Hous3S 
makes  the  Tribe.  The  aggregation  of  Tribes  constitutes  the 
Commonwealth.  Are  we  at  liberty  to  follow  these  indications, 
and  to  lay  down  that  the  commonwealth  is  a  collection  of  per- 
sons united  by  common  descent  from  the  progenitor  of  an 
original  family  ?  Of  this,  we  may,  at  least,  be  certain,  that  all 
ancient  societies  regarded  themselves  as  having  proceeded  from 
one  original  stock,  and  even  labored  under  an  incapacity  for 
comprehending  any  reason,  except  this,  for  their  holding  to- 
gether in  political  union." 

The  author  then  proceeds  to  show  how  adoption  came  in  to 
replace  those  members  of  the  State  who  had  either  abandoned 
it  or  been  expelled  from  it ;  but  adoption  itself  confirmed  the 
universal  idea  of  the  family,  as  it  was  merely  an  extension  of 


510  GENTILISM. 

it  by  mere  incorporation.  From  this  he  explains  the  origin  of 
aristocracies,  much  more  clearly  and  rationally  than  Yico  ever 
did  in  his  Scienza  Nuova, ;  but  these  various  branches  of  the 
subject  not  being  of  paramount  importance  in  our  actual  inves- 
tigations, we  cannot  follow  Mr.  Maine  in  his  learned  discussions. 
We  cannot,  even,  do  any  justice  to  his  high  philosophical  views 
of  the  constitution  of  the  ancient  family  in  Rome,  a  subject 
so  important  to  us.  He  shows  that,  "  older,  probably,  than  the 
House  and  the  Tribe,  it  left  traces  of  itself  on  private  law 
long  after  the  House  and  the  Tribe  had  been  forgotten,  and 
long  after  consanguinity  had  ceased  to  be  associated  with  the 
composition  of  States.  It  will  be  found  to  have  stamped  it- 
self on  all  the  great  departments  of  jurisprudence,  and  may  be 
detected,  I  think,  as  the  true  source  of  many  of  their  most 
important  and  most  durable  characteristics." 

But  it  is  chiefly  in  the  long  discussion  on  the  Patria  Po- 
testas,  and  on  the  nature  of  Agnation  and  Cognation  among 
the  Romans,  that  Mr.  Maine  explains  the  whole  constitution  of 
the  Family  as  it  was  understood  in  Rome,  with  the  successive 
variations  of  the  idea,  as  it  was  modified  by  circumstances, 
and  particularly  by  the  conquests  of  the  republic,  and  the  an- 
nexation of  many  countries  to  which  was  gradually  extended 
the  right  of  citizenship.  We  cannot  attempt  to  analyze  this 
learned  and  brilliant  generalization ;  we  would  but  spoil  it ;  and 
it  ought  to  be  read  in  the  book  itself.  But  no  stronger  proof 
could  be  given  of  the  truth  advocated  in  Gentilism,  that  in 
primitive  times  the  family  tie  is  seen  everywhere  as  the  first 
constituent  element  of  tribes  and  nations.  No  one,  certainly, 
before  Mr.  Maine,  had  showed  so  clearly  its  influence  over  all 
the  state  and  social  institutions  of  Rome ;  and  no  one  expected 
before  the  appearance  of  his  book,  to  see  the  patriarchal  state 
of  society  as  influencing  so  powerfully  the  most  extensive, 
rational,  consistent,  and  admirable  system  of  jurisprudence  that 
has  ever  been  planned  by  the  genius  of  man,  at  any  time  of  the 


APPENDIX    II.  511 

world's  history.  For  the  boast  of  the  Latin  poet,  that  the  dis- 
tinctive mark  of  Rome  was  to  govern  the  world,  Tu  regere  itn- 
perio  populos  (^En.  vi.,  851),  referred  evidently  more  to  her 
laws  than  to  her  armies  ;  and  every  one  is  aware  how  far  the 
modern  codes  of  all  European  nations  are  impregnated  with 
the  maxims  of  the  Roman  jurisprudence. 

The  only  thing  to  which  we  feel  constrained  to  object  is  the 
very  few  words  Mr.  Maine  thinks  proper  to  write  in  dispraise 
of  canon  law,  chiefly  on  the  subject  of  marriage.  But  the 
learned  author  shows  the  small  importance  he  attached  here  to 
his  observations  by  the  off-hand  way  he  speaks  of  it,  and  the 
care  he  takes  not  to  attempt  any  discussion  of  it.  This  dis- 
crepancy of  our  views,  with  his  own,  does  not  affect,  in  the 
least,  the  opinion  we  entertain  of  the  author's  merit  with 
regard  to  the  origin  and  history  of  law.  It  is  true  that  in  his 
book  the  details  he  gives"  concern  chiefly  Rome ;  and  it  was 
most  important  he  should  do  so,  since  no  one  before  had  seen 
so  clearly  the  patriarchal  origin  of  Roman  law  ;  but  here  and 
there  he  alludes  to  the  Hindoos,  the  Sclavonians,  and  the  Celts, 
and  the  few  remarks  he  makes  on  the  subject  of  those  nations 
are  always  most  forcible  and  clear.  He  could  speak  of  Ilin- 
dostan  with  authority,  as  he  had  been  for  a  number  of  years  "  a 
member  of  the  Supreme  Council  of  India ; "  and  his  profound 
knowledge,  not  only  of  jurisprudence,  but  also  of  history,  en- 
titles him  to  be  listened  to  when  speaking  of  those  subjects. 
Consequently,  although  he  develops  his  ideas  chiefly  with 
respect  to  one  great  nation,  he  must  be  believed  when  he  says 
that  "  the  difficulty,  at  the  present  stage  of  the  inquiry,  is  to 
know  where  to  stop,  to  say  of  what  races  of  men  it  is  not 
allowable  to  lay  down  that  the  society  in  which  they  are  united 
was  originally  organized  on  the  patriarchal  model." 

Although  this  work  on  "Ancient  Law "  has  already  passed 
through  five  editions  in  London  and  three  in  the  United  States, 
it  had  not  been  our  good  fortune  to  meet  with  it  before  Gen- 
34 


512  GENTILISM. 

tilism  was  more  than  half  in  types.  We  could  not  but  rejoice 
at  this  new  confirmation  of  previous  well-settled  ideas,  and  at 
the  opportunity  offered  us  to  refer  to  it  at  the  end  of  this 
volume. 


INDEX. 


A. 

ABSORPTION  IN  GOD. 

Leading1  to  pantheism,  148. 
ACADEMIC  SCHOOL.     See  Plato. 

.35SCHYL08. 

Did  not  understand  the  myth  of 
Prometheus,  395. 

Obscured  noble  traditions  by  his 
polytheism,  ibid. 

High  moral  doctrines  of.  401,  sq. 

Opposed  to  Pericles'  innovations,  402 

Favorable  to  antiquity,  403,  403. 

Doctrine  of,  on  expiation.  403-407. 

On  transmission  of  sin,  406,  407. 

On  contrition,  ibid. 

On  the  law  of  suffering,  412-415. 

Admitted  a  Supreme  God,  413. 
AGNI.     See  Devatas. 
AHURA  MAZDA. 

Why  the  Supreme  God  was  called 
in  Bactria,  not  Brahma,  181,  182. 

Attributes  of.  183,  184. 
ALLOPHYLIAN  RACE,    ;~ee  Races. 
AMUX. 

The  most  ancient  temple  of,  was  at 
Aleroe  in  Ethiopia,  227. 

The  God  of  all  Africa,  ibid. 

Had  no  human  history,  ibid. 

Belief  in.  of  great  antiquity,  228. 

No  obscene  emblem  connected  with 
the  worship  of.  229. 

A  part  of  the  culture  of  Egypt  de- 
rived from  the  worship  of,  229, 
230. 

Was  not  Amun-Ra,  231. 

The  Supreme  God  of  Africa  and  of 
India,  ibid. 

Meant  "  hidden,"  232. 

Could  not  be  the  visible  universe, 
233 

Identified  with  Brahma,  233. 

The  idea  of,  degraded  by  subsequent 
superstition,  263,  264" 

Grandeur  of  the  myth  of,  264. 

The  myth  of,  obscured  by  myth- 
ology, 329. 


AMTTN-RA. 

The  origin  of  idolatry  In  Egypt,  252. 
ANIMAL,  WORSHIP. 

Not  a  part  of  primeval  religion,  259. 

2GO. 

Explained  by  the  introduction   of 
pantheism   in   India   and  E^ypt, 
260,  261. 
No  sign  of,  on  old  monuments  in 

Egypt,  261,  262. 

Dating  from  the  last  Egyptian  dy- 
nasties, ibid. 

Strange  examples  of.  263,  263. 
Proofs  of,  lately  dis-overed  263. 
Prevalent  in  Egypt,  Greece,  Syria, 

etc..  357. 
In  Indostau,  171. 
ANTIQUITY  OP  MAN. 

Pretended  proot  of,  in  Egypt,  Pref. 

v,  note. 

Reconcilable  with  the  Bible,  63,  64. 
Various  estimates  of,  76,  77. 
Calculations  on,  unreliable,  77,  73. 
Kot  proved  from  the  stone  period,  81. 
Not  proved  from  the  drift,  85,  86. 
Disproved  from  the  drift,  87,  sq. 
APOLLO.    See  Myths. 
ARABIANS. 

Primitive  religion  of.scarcel v  known, 

437. 

The,  were  at  first  monotheists,  443. 
ARCHITECTURE  OF  INDIA. 
First  examples  of.  158,  159,  166. 
Oldest  monuments  of,  167. 
At  Ellora,  subsequent,  168. 
In  Egypt,  various  styles,  261,  262. 
The  most  primitive,  the  best,  2U1, 

262. 

ARCHYTAS. 
Correspondence  of  Plato  with,  375- 

380. 
ARHIMAN. 

Opposed  to  Mithra,  191. 
Not  without  the  reach  of  Ormuzd  169 
ARYAN  MIGRATIONS. 
Identified  with  Japhetic  migrations, 
273. 

(513) 


514 


INDEX. 


ARYAN  RACES.     See  Races. 
ASSUTJR. 

The  chief  God  in  Assyria,  441. 

Identified  with  the  II  of  Chaldsea, 
ibid. 

ASSTHIANS. 

Originally  monotheists,  440,  441. 
No  pantheism  originally  among  the,  j 

442. 

ATHENE.    S^e  Myths. 
AVATARS. 

Origin  of  the  idea  of,  165. 
The,  of  Vishnu  in  opposition  to  Siva- 
ism,  166. 
Epoch  of  the,  167,  168. 


B. 

BABEL,  TOWER  OF. 
•Ruins  of,  yet  in  existence,  42-44. 
The  best  explanation  of  ihe  multi- 
tude of  languages,  45,  46. 
At,  pride  punished  by  division,  56.    ! 
A  proof  of  primitive  civilization  260.  : 
Not  the  starting-point  of  migrations, 

275. 
BARBARISM. 

Not  the  first  state  of  man  Pref.  ix. 
Not  the  index  of  the  elan  system,  52. 
Not  the  result  of  want  of  comfort, 

but  of  moral  degradation,  67,  68. 
Concluded  from  a  parte  facts.  62. 
The  use  of  stone  no  sign  of,  69. 
Not  proved  by  western  facts,  75. 
The  supposed  unconsciousness  of,  a 

false  supposition,  98,  99. 
Not  the  consequence  of  the  want  of 

the  writing  art,  100. 
No    mention    of,  in   Central   Asia, 

under  Zoroaster,  201. 
Of   Grecian   tribes   caused  by  the 

hardships  of  migration,  278,  279. 
Of  Heroic  Greece.  See  Heroic  Greece,  j 
Clanship  no  proof  of,  in  Greece,3 19,sg 
Disproof  of,  in  Greece,  325. 
The  Greek  drama  no  proof  of,  325, 

326. 

Supposed,  of  the  Turanians,  458, 459. 
Of  the  Turanians  derived  from  the 

curse,  460. 
Real,  of  the  Turanians  disproved, 

463. 
Disproved  by  the  whole  of  Gentil- 

ism,  475,  476. 
Reduced  to  the  law  of  degeneracy, 

476. 


BRAHMA. 

The  male,  a  modern  invention,  137 
138. 

The  neuter,  really  tbe  Supreme,  139. 

Anterior  to  creation,  140. 

Had  many  names.  140,  141. 

Called  Varuna,  141. 

Called  Dyaus,  143. 

Meaning  of  this  name  of,  144. 

Absorption  in,  147. 
BRAHMANAS.     See  Vedas. 
BRONZE  AGE.     See  Periods. 
BUDDHISM. 

Origin  of,  156. 

Really  idolatrous  for  the  common 
people,  157,  161,  162. 

Connected  with  Sivaism,  158,  159. 

Sway  of,  ibid. 

Advocacy  of  charity  and  other  vir- 
tues in,  160, 161. 

Hold  of,  on  the  peopK  162. 

Advocacy  of  atheism  and  annihila- 
tion in,  163. 

The  Athenians  had  nothing  to  do 
with,  279. 


C. 

CASTES. 

In    Hindostan   were   at    first   only 

classes,  115. 

Intermarriage  allowed  between  va- 
rious, ibid. 
In  Egypt,  245. 
The,  of  both  countries  alike,  245, 

246. 
In  Hindostan   analogous   to  social 

classes  in  Celtic  countries,  489- 

498. 
Origin  of,  in  India  and  Egypt,  499, 

500. 

CENTRAL  ASIA.    See  Mazdeism. 
CHALDEANS. 

The,  were  Cushites,  438. 

Clanship    early   destroyed    among, 

ibid. 

Monotheism  among,  439,  440. 
Rapid    decline   of  religion   among 

the.  440. 
CHINESE. 

Buddhism  not  the  original  religion 

of  the,  446. 

Confucius'  system  atheistic,  467, 468. 
Lao-tseu  alone  kept  some  principles 

of  primeval  religion  among.468  sq 
Primeval  religion  of,  as  expressed 

in  the  Taj  te-king,  470,  sq. 


INDEX. 


515 


Primeval  religion  of,  not  discon- 
nected from  that  of  other  ancient 
nations,  468,  sq. 

Some  type  of  the  Trinity  among, 
471. 

Monotheism  of,  ibid. 

Philosophy  of,  analogous  to  that  of 
India,  473. 

Patriarchal  manners  of,  474. 
CHKONOLOGY. 

Of  the  Bible  elastic.  Pref.  v. 

Of  ancient  nations  no  more  an  ob- 
jection, Pref.  vi. 
CLANSHIP. 

Mankind  began  by,  36-39,  57,  429. 

Not  barbarism,  39,  40. 

Inducing  division,  52,  57. 

Inducing  religious  schism,  53. 

In  India  at  the  time  of  Alexander, 
113. 114 

Strict,  had  existed  in  India  from  the 
beginning,  114-116. 

Proved  in  India  by  the  organization 
of  villages,  116,  117. 

Replaced  by  empire  in  India,  1G9, 
170. 

In  Egypt,  258. 

Proved  by  Str'abo.  258.  259. 

In  Greece,  315-319. 

No  barbarism  in  Grecian,  319,  320. 

In  primitive  times  did  not  suppose 
disintegration,  429,  430. 

Xo,  anciently  among  most  of  the 
Semitic  races,  438. 

See  Patriarchal  Society. 
CLIMATE. 

A  source  of  division,  53,  54. 
C0HTJ.     See  Devatas. 


D. 

DELUGE. 

Indicated  by  the  facts  of  the  quar- 
ternary  period,  81-83. 

Admitted  by  scientists,  83,  84. 
DESIGN. 

Apparent      in      Holy      Scriptures, 

15,  sq* 
DEVATAS. 

Were  the,  gods  ?  133. 

Were  Agni,  Cuhu,  Indra,  all  gods? 
133,  134. 

The  meaning  of  the  Hindoo,  ex- 
plained by  the  Rites  of  the  Catho- 
lic Church,  135,  136. 

The  same  as  the  devas  of  Zoroaster, 
181, 184. 


The  consecration  of,  in  Mazdeism  the 
same  as  in  the  Catholic  Church, 
185. 

DODONA. 

Oracle  of,  established  by  the  Pelas- 

gians,  282. 

Priestesses  of  the  oracle  of,  285. 
DRIFT. 

Phenomena  of,  72. 
The  remains  of  man  found  only  in 

the,  77. 
The,  no  proof  of  a  great  antiquity 

for  man,  85,  86. 
DUALISM. 

In  the  religion  of  Zoroaster.     See 

Zarathustra  and  Mazdeism. 
The  pretended,  of  Zoroaster  a  real 

argument  against  atheists,   194, 

195. 
DURGA. 

Female  energy  of  Siva,  173. 


E. 

EARTH. 

The,  according  to  Scripture,  3,  sq. 

Suspended  in  space,  8. 

Spherical,  9. 

The  atmosphere  of  the,  10. 

The  ocean  of  the,  11,  12. 

The  seas  of  the.  as  highways.  18,  sq. 

The  mountains  of  the,  21,  22. 

The  configuration  of  the,  a  subse- 
quent source  of  division,  50,431,*^. 
EGYPT. 

The  land  of  mystery,  205. 

The  mystery  of,  cleared  up  by  our 

knowledge  of  India,  206,  207. 
EGYPTIANS. 

To  what  race  did  the,  belong?  202, 
203. 

The,  civilized  from  the  start,  203, 
204. 

Date  of  the  origin  of,  204,  205. 
•  Several  kinds  of  alphabets  and  writ- 
ings among  the,  206,  207. 

Ancient  autnors"  o-  inion  about  the 
doctrine  of  the,  224,  233. 

The,  doctrine  contained  the  beHet 
in  creation,  224,  225,  235.  236. 

The  belief  in  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  225,  236. 

The  belief  in  one  God,  ibid. 

What  Christian  writers  thought,  of 
the,  doctrine.  225,  226,  233,  234. 

The  religion  of  the  ancient,  monothe- 
istic, 226,  227,  238. 


516 


INDEX. 


The  monotheism  of  the,  proved  by 

the  monuments,  234,  235. 
The,  believed  in  a  judgment  after 

death,  236,  237. 

Opinion  of  Mariette  on  the,  239. 
Origin  of  pantheism  among  the.  240. 
Decline  of  religion  among  the,  241, 
.  242,  sq,  250-252. 
Identity  of  God  and  the  world  in 

the  subsequent,  doctrine,  241,  242. 
Doctrine  of  transmigration  among 

the,  243. 
Differences  of  character  between  the, 

and  the  Hindoos,  246. 
Pantheism,   idolatry,   etc.,   of   the. 

See  Religion. 

Esoteric  religion  among  the,  265. 
Coarseness  of  the  religion  of  the, 

266,  267. 

Religion  deteriorating,  267,  268. 
Religion   becoming    unintelligible, 

268,  269. 
Religion  exemplified  by  the  funereal 

ritual,  269. 
Decline  of,  religion  cause  of  national 

degeneracy,  269,  270. 
Doctrine  contained  in  Plato.  297,298. 
The  crudest  idolatry  taught  by  the 

Egyptian  books,  350,  sq. 
ESOTERIC  DOCTRINE. 

What  we  know  of  the,  of  the  Egyp- 
tians, 237. 
Knowledge  of  the  Supreme  God  a, 

among  Egyptians,  239. 
What  Eusebius  taught  of  the,  of 

Egypt,  251. 

Often  puerile  in  Egypt,  265,  266. 
ETHIOPIA. 

The  great  seat  of  the  worship  of 

Amun.  227. 

The  origin  of  a  part  of  the  civiliza- 
tion of  Egypt,  229,  230. 
EUROPE. 

The  population  of,  came  from  Asia, 

272,  273.  • 

EVOLUTION. 

Not  proved  for  man,  Pref.  viii. 
As  taught  by  Moses,  14. 
Of  language,  28. 
Consequences  of,  36-38. 
Disproved  by  geology,  61. 
Opposed  to  science,  88,  89. 
Disproved  by  history,  347.  348. 
Disproved  by  the  necessity  of  the 

supernatural.     See  Supernatural. 
EXPIATION. 

Doctrine  of  .?Eschylus  on,  403,  sq. 


Harsh  doctrines  on,  in  Heroic  Greece 
403-407. 

Some  crimes  thought  to  be  incapa- 
ble of,  404-406,  410,  sq. 

Modification  of  the  Old  Testament 
doctrine  on,  410,  411. 


F. 

FEMALE  DEITIES. 

Origin  of,  in  India,  173. 

No,  originally  in  the  creed  of <  any 

nation,  243. 

Origin  of,  in  Egypt,  254. 
FOOT-PAN. 

The  foot-pan  of  Amasis,  a  proof  of 
tlie  strict  idolatry  of  the  ancients, 
348-350. 


G. 

GATHAS. 

Oldest  books  of  the  Zends,  178,  183, 

185. 
GAYATRY. 

More  eminent  than  any  other  devo- 
tion, 134. 

Definition  of  the,  ibid. 
GREECE,  HEROIC. 

Thought  to  have  been   barbarous, 

312. 
From  what  authors  a  true  picture 

of,  can  be  obtained,  313-315. 
In,  no  republics  existed  but  mon- 
archies, 317,  318. 

In,  real  clanship  prevailed,  318,  319. 
Description  of  a  house  in,  322. 
Farm  labor  in,  323. 
Metals  in  the  houses  of,  323. 
The  principles  imbibed  in,  the  chief 

cause  of  resistance  to  subsequent 

corruption,  334. 
Differences  between,  and  subsequent 

Hellas,  365,  366. 
GREECE. 

The  first  population  of,  came  from 

Central  Asia.  275,  276. 
No  priesthood  in,  810. 
Rapid  decline  of  pure  doctrine  in, 

326. 
Decline  of  morality  in,  caused  by 

idolatry,  345. 
Last  stage  of  religion  in,  351,  352, 

357. 
National  disruption  introduced  by 

religion  in,  353,  354.          £ 


INDEX. 


517 


Culture  reconcilable  with  supersti- 
tion in,  361. 

National    disintegration    in,    431- 

433. 
GREEKS. 

Called  Javans  in  Scripture,  Javanas 
in  Sanscrit,  274,  275. 

The,  had  not  the  Vedas.  276. 

The,  had  an  alphabet,  ibid. 

The  language  of  the,  modified  by 
the  tribes  through  which  they 
travelled,  276,  277. 

Hardships  encountered  by  the,  in 
their  migrations,  277,  278. 

The  migration  of  the,  misunder- 
stood by  the  author  of  "  India  in 
Greece,"  278,  279. 

The,  derived  from  the  Pelasgians, 
281. 

Monotheism  of  the,  anterior  to  phi- 
losophy, 283,  284. 

The,  not  traditionalists,  298, 299,300. 
Degeneracy  of  the,  in  religious 
doctrine,  309. 


H. 

HAMITIC  RACE.     See  Races. 
HEAVENS. 

Light  of  the,  4,  5,  sq. 
Stars  in  the,  6. 
Meteorology  of  the,  7. 
HEBREWS. 

Providential  mission  of  the,  56. 
The,  placed  at  the  centre  of  the  Old 

World,  56. 
Monotheism  of  the,  peculiar  to  them, 

445,446. 
Excellence   of   the    name    of   God 

among  the,  446,  447. 
Meaning    of    the    tetragrammaton 

among  the,  ibid. 
All   the  divine   attributes   derived 

from  it  among  the,  447,  448. 
The,  inclined  to  idolatry  not  to  pan- 
theism, 448. 
The  worship   of  God  among  the, 

placed  under  the  guardianship  of 

love,  448,  449. 

The,  no  more  subject  to  ridicule,  450. 
Influence  of  the  religion  of  the,  over 

powerful  nations,  451-454. 
Influence  of  the  religion  of  the,  over 

surrounding  nations,  454-457. 
HELLAS.    See  Greece. 
HELLENES.     See  Greeks. 


HERMETIC  BOOKS. 

What  were  the?  211,  212. 

Enumerated  by  Clement  of  Alexan- 
dria, 212,  213. 

Were  the  Vedas  of  Egypt.  214. 

How  did  the,  perish,  214,  215. 

False,  215. 

The,  supposed  divine,  216. 

Two  kinds  of,  216,  217. 

Attributed  to  Thoth,  ibid. 

False  Neoplatonist.  217-219. 

False  Christian,  ibid 

Time  of  appearance  of  the  false,  220. 

The  false,  contained  something  of 
the  genuine,  221. 

Christian  false,  in  particular,  226. 

Reliability  of  the,  244 

Perhaps  caine  from  India,  248-2->0. 

The,  literature  has  the  characters 
of  the  Orphic  literature  in  Greece, 
288,  289. 
HERODOTUS. 

Reliable  as  an  historian,  315. 

Strabo's  appreciation  of,  ibid. 

Description  of  the  primitive  state 
of  Europe  and  Asia  by,  316,  317. 

A  witness  of  the*  mining  art  in  his 

time,  324. 
HIEROGLYPHS. 

Different  kinds  of,  207-209. 

Not  likely  to  give  information  on 
the  Egyptian  religion,  208-211. 

Later  than  idolatry,  210. 

Supposed  alphabet  in  the,  210,  211. 
HINDOO  INSTITUTIONS. 

Analogous  to  those  of  Celtic  coun- 
tries, 489^98. 
HINDOO  PHILOSOPHY. 

The  Mimansa  and  Vedanta  of,  nearly 
free  of  error,  154. 

Pantheism  advocated  in  the  Sank- 
hya  of,  ibid. 

The  Yoga  of,  156. 

Buddhist  atheism  originating  from 
the  Sankhya  of,  157. 

The  source  of  many   religions  in 

Asia,  182. 
HINDOO  RELIGION. 

Deteriorating,  153,  159,  160. 

Passing  from  monotheism  to  pan- 
theism, 151-155. 

Passing  to  idolatry,  164. 

Morally  degraded.  166,  170-173. 

General  view  of,  176. 

Individualism  in,  176,  177. 

Coincidence    of  the,  with  the  Egyp- 
tian, 241-244. 


518 


INDEX. 


The  doctrine  of  Universal  Soul  the 
chief  cause  of  pantheism  in,  260. 

Modern,  coarse  and  vulgar.  266. 

The  source  of  all  the  religions  of 

Asia,  182. 
HISTORIANS  IN  INDIA.    . 

No,  at  first  sight,  164. 

Epic  poets  real,  164,  165. 
HOMA.     See  Soma. 
HOMER. 

Reliable  for  facts,  313,  sq. 

Strabo's  appreciation  of,  ibid. 

Description  of  the  heroic  age  in,  316. 

Cities  in  the  heroic  age  in,  319,  320. 

Not  in  opposition  to  Hesiod,  321, 
322. 

Description  of  houses  in,  322-324. 

Doubts  about  the  existence  of,  332. 

Cause  of  the  belief  iu  the  anthropo- 
morphism of  the  gods,'  332,  sq. 

Possible  cause  of  the  alteration  of 
the    religious    language    of   the 
Greeks,  310,  311. 
HITMAN  SOCIETY,  PRIMITIVE. 

At  first  parcelled  in  small  groups, 
51,  52. 

The  same  in  India  at  the  time  of 
Alexander,  112. 

The  same  in  Mazdeism,  200,  201. 

The  same  in  Egypt,  256,  sq. 

Of  a  high  grade  of  civilization  at 
the  beginning,  259,  260. 

See  Patriarchal  Society. 


I. 

IDOLATRY. 

Origin  of,  109,  110. 

Origin  of,  in  India,  165. 

First  confined  to  Sivaism,  1G6. 

Vishnu,  more  recent,  166,  167. 

Not  introduced  by  long  poems  in 
Egypt,  253. 

Poems  connected  with,  in  Egvpt, 
253,  254,  256. 

Origin  of  art  in  Egypt,  254. 

In  Egypt  offers  the  gods  in  groups, 
254. 

Presents  female  deities  as  in  Hin- 
dostan,  254,  255. 

Local  as  to  the  worship  of  particu- 
lar gods,  255. 

In  Greece  caused  by  Homer,  332,  sq. 

Reconcilable  with  refinement  in  In- 
dia, Enrypt,  Greece,  335,  336. 

What  kind  of  refinement  was 
brought  on  by,  336,  337. 


Not  sufficiently  opposed  by  philoso- 
phers, 337. 

In  Greece  as  a  source  of  art,  338,  339. 

Source  of  the  nude  in  art,  340-342. 

Imitation  of  tLe  gods  in,  a  source  of 
immorality,  344,  345. 

Strict,  in  Egypt  under  Amasis,  348- 
350. 

Theory  of  lamblichus  on,  350. 

Theory  of  Apuleius  on,  351. 

The  crudest,  proclaimed  by  Hermes 
Trismegistus,  351,  352. 

Origin  of  female  deities  in,  173. 

Before,  God  was  known  to  be  a^evo- 
6r/hve,  243. 

Origin  of  female  deities  in  the,  of 
Egypt,  254. 

Open   flood-tide  of,  in   Greece   and 

Italy,  423-425. 
INCARNATIONS. 

Origin  of  the  belief  in,  in  India,  165, 
166. 

When,  were  imagined,  167,  168. 

See  Avatars. 
INDIVIDUALISM. 

Cause  of,  in  religion  in  Greece,  358, 
359. 

In  Rome,  359,  360. 

Source  of  superstition,  ibid. 

Embracing  atheism    and   supersti- 
tion at  the  same  time,  ibid. 

Addicted  to  dream  and  the  consulta- 
tion of  oracle?,  369,  361. 

In  Greece,  433,  434. 

In  modern  times,  434,  435. 
INDRA.     See  Devatas. 
Io. 

Myth  of,  see  Myths. 
ITALIC  SCHOOL.    See  Pythagoras  and 
Plato 


J. 


JAVANS.    See  Greeks. 
JUPITER. 

Original  belief  of  the  Romans  on 
the  subject  of,  304,  305. 


KINGS. 

Of  China.     See  Chinese. 


L. 

LANGUAGE. 
One  at  first,  27,  29,  note. 


INDEX. 


519 


Not  evolved,  28. 

Difference  of,  fostering  division,  42, 
43,  45. 

Origin  of  sacred  and  popular,  44. 

No  tribe  without.  99. 

Egyptian,  207,  2(8,  «?. 

A  multitude  of.  in  the  country  con- 
necting Europe  with  Asia,  276,277. 
LIXUAM. 

First  appears  in  Buddhist  and  Siva- 

ist  temples,  158. 
LrruKTius. 

The  work  of,  an  exception  in  Latin 
poetry,  419,  420. 


M. 

MAGIANS. 

The  obscurity  of  the  doctrine  of  the, 

removed  in  great  part,  197. 
MAGIC. 

Of  the  Tantras,  174,  175. 
Of  Greece  and  Rome,  352,  353. 
MAHABHARATA.        See    Poetry    and 

Id'tlatry. 
MAX. 

Adaptability  of,  to  the  whole  globe, 

17,  18. 

Unity  of  species  in,  26. 
Unity  of  language  for,  27,  sq. 
Primitive,  better  known  by  history 
than  bv  zoology  or  geology,  106- 
108. 
MAXETHO." 

The  dynasties  of,  not  all  successive, 

857. 
MAXICHEISM. 

Not  the  offspring  of  Mazdeism,  196.. 
MANTRAS.     See  Vedas. 
MAZDETSM. 

Free  at  first  from  dualism,  189. 
Dualism  suspected  to  have  been  con- 
tained in,  189. 
Real  dualism  introduced  only  much 

later  on,  189.  190,  196. 
Reasons  for  not  admitting  dualism 
'  in  primitive,  190.  191. 
Dualism  contradictory  to  other  doc- 
trines of,  191-193. 
No  real  dualism  in,  194. 
The  i  rue,  only  antagonistic  to  athe- 
ism, li)5. 
Had  nothing  common  with  Mani- 

cheism,  196,  197. 
Other  exalted   doctrines  contained 

in,  197. 
Decline  of,  198-200. 


Never  passed  to  idolatry,  199. 

The  worship  of  fire  in,  was  only 

emblematical,  200. 
See  Zarathustra. 
MENU  CODE. 
On  creation,  149. 
On  marriaae,  121-123. 
On  chastity,  123,  124. 
On  transmigration,  149. 
No  doctrine  of  absorption  in  the,150. 
On  pure  love,  151. 
Highly  poetical,  164. 
METALS. 

Used  in  Heroic  Greece,  323-325. 
Always  in  use  in  Africa,  67. 
MIGRATION. 

Of  Aryan   Races.     See  Aryan   Mi- 
gration. 
Of  Celts,  274. 
Of  Teutons,  ibid . 
Of  Greeks  and  Italians,  ibid. 
Of  Slavonic  tribes,  ibid. 
Of  Medes,  Persians,  e'c.,  ibid. 
Hardships  of  Hellenic,  277,  27& 
MIMAXSA  PHILOSOPHY.    See  Hindoo 

Philosophy. 
MIRACLES. 

Are  the  best  explanation   >f  many 

facts,  41. 
MITHRA. 

Opposed  to  Ahriman,  191. 
Character  of,  192. 
Sublimity  of  the  personality  of,  197, 

198. 
MONOTHEISM. 

Of  the  Hebrews,  110. 

Of  the  Hebrews  to  be  distinguished 

from  that  of  other  nations,  445- 

449. 

Universal  at  first,  111. 
Acknowledged   as  the   religion   of 

primitive  India,  125,  126. 
In  Greece  anterior  to  philosophy, 

283,  284,  305. 
In  Central  Asia.   See  Mazdeism  and 

Zends. 

In  Ejrvpt.     See  Amun. 
In  the  Greek  poets,  413-418. 
In  Chaldaea,  439,  440. 
In  Assyria,  441. 
In  Phoenicia,  442,  443. 
In  Semitic  races,  444,  445. 
Among  the  Turanians,  471,  472. 
MORALITY. 

Of  the  primitive  Indians,  118-124. 
For  youih  in  the  saint  country,  123, 

134. 


520 


INDEX. 


In  Mazdeism,  200. 

In  Heroic  Greece.  See  Heroic  Greece. 
The  causes  of  a  harsh  moral  doc- 
trine in  Heroic  Greece,  403-407. 
MYSTERIES. 

Instituted  in  Greece  by  Orpheus  and 

Pythagoras,  294. 
At  first  promotive  of  good  morals, 

294,  295. 
MYTHS. 

Original,   degraded  into   fables  in 

E;rypt,  263. 
Noble,  of  Amun,  264. 
Of  Apollo  and  Athene,  389,  390. 
Of  Prometheus,  394,  395. 
Of  Prometheus  understood  of  Adam, 

396,  397. 
Of  Prometheus  understood  of  Christ, 

397-401. 
Of  lo,  400,  401. 
Of  Phaeton,  299. 
MYTHOLOGY. 

Idolatrous,  alluring  to  the  Greets, 

300. 

Meaning  of  the  word  myth,  328. 
Historical,  source  of  error,  329. 
Physical  phenomena  turned  into,330. 
Multiplicity  of  gods  the  result  of  the 

multiplicity  of  fables  in,  ibid. 
History  turned   into,  cause  of  the 

apotheosis  of  men,  331. 
Only  four  centuries  old.  at  the  time 

of  Herodotus,  331,  332. 
Anthropomorphism    of    the    gods 

through, 333-335. 
Anterior  to  and  cause  of  idolatry, 

332,  333. 
Anthropomorphism  in,  not  derived 

from  the  belief  in  the  Incarnation, 

333. 

Anthropomorphism  in  Greek,  infe- 
rior to  the  Avatars  of  Vishnu,  ibid. 
Not  the  source  of  the  culture  of  the 

Greeks,  334,  335,  sq. 
Localized  and  confused,  354-356. 
Greek,  compared  to  the  Egyptian, 

356,  357. 


N. 

NATIONAL  BELIGION. 

Introduced  everywhere  by  panthe- 
ism and  idolatry,  353,  354. 

Introduced  in  Greece  by  Homer,  354. 

Tending  always  to  become  local, 
354,  355,  sq. 


Disappearing    entirely    to    become 

local,  355,  356. 
In  Greece,  at  last  completely  local. 

426. 
NATIONALITY. 

Never     compact    in    Greece,    426, 

427. 
Why,  was  not  compact  in  Greece, 

427-429. 

In  modern  times,  430. 
NEOPLATONISM. 
Chief  object  of,  219. 
The  origin   of  the  false  Hermetic 

books,  215-220. 
General  scope  of,  221-223. 
NIRVANA. 

Last  result  of  Hindoo  philosophy, 

157. 
The  consequence   of  the  belief  in 

transmigration,  149. 
In  Buddhism,  160-163. 

NOMES. 

Meaning  of  the  word,  257. 
Number  of,  in  Egypt,  ibid. 
Hostile  to  each  other,  258. 
NUDE  FORMS. 

Originating  with  the  Greeks  from 

their  mythology,  340. 
Rejected  by  all  ancient  nations,  340 

341. 
Love    for,   spread    by  the    Greeks 

among  other  nations,  342. 


O. 


OCELLUS  LUCANUS. 
.    Was  a  lawgiver  as  well  as  a  philoso- 
pher, 380. 

ORMUZD.     See  Ahura  Mazda. 
ORPHEUS. 

Sacred  image  of,  282. 

A  Pelasgian,  285. 

Fabulous  history  of,  ibid. 

An  Aryan,  at  least  had  come  from 

the  East,  286. 
Ideas  of  the  ancients  with  respect 

to,  286, 287. 

The  doctrine  of,  Vedic,  287. 
Connected  with  other  Vedic  persbn- 

ages,  287,  288. 

Literature  from,  objected  to,  288. 
Literature  from,  has  the  same  char- 
acter as  the  Herrnaic,  288,  289. 
Examples  of  literature  from,  shows 
it  to  be  Vedic,  289, 290;  and  Egyp- 
'tian,  291.,  293. 


INDEX. 


521 


The    literature    from,    older    than 
Pythagoras,  292,  293,  296. 

Interpolated  by  Onomacritus,  293. 

Doctrines  of,  294,  295. 

Had  received  the  ri^es  of  initiation 
in  Egypt,  295. 

Analogous  to  the  Egyptian  Hermes, 
296. 

Quoted  by  Plato,  296,  297. 

Poetry  of,  admitted  by  Plato  in  his 
republic,  297. 

What,  thought  of  the  name  of  Zeus, 
302-304. 

The  first  cause  of  decline  in  doctrine 
for  the  Greeks,  326,  327. 

School  of,  adopted  by  Pythagoras, 
370. 

Proof  of  the  antiquity  of  the  poetry 

of,  from  JSschylus,  415. 
OSIRIS. 

History  of  described  on  the  monu- 
ments, 261. 

Dissolute  ceremonies  in  the  sacri- 
fices to,  267. 

Judge  of  the  dead,  268. 

History  of,  probably  the  subject  of 
poems,  253,  254,  256. 

Was  the  same  as  Dionysus,  295. 


PALAEOLITHIC  AGE 

Facts  of  the,  in  Western  Europe, 
71,  72. 

Unfairly  called  Quaternary,  72,  73. 

Fauna  of  the,  73,. 

Climate  during  the,  78- 

The,  very  violent,  78,  79. 

Violence  of  the,  proved  by  the  ir- 
regular strata,  80,  81. 

Human  remains  of  the,  87,  sq. 

Objects  of  art  in  the,  ibid. 
PANTHEISM. 

Origin  of,  109. 

Origin  of,  in  India,  151,  152. 

Advocated  in  the  Sankhya  philoso- 
phy, 154,  1")5. 

Origm  of,  in  Egypt,  240,  sq,  251,  sq. 

Genesis  of,  in  E^ypt,  250-252, 

Of  Orpheus  in  Greece,  3.6,  327,  sq, 
passim. 

No  inclination  to,  among  the  Jews, 

447,  448. 
PATRIARCHAL  SOCIETY. 

Some  examples  of,  62,  63. 

Other  examples  of,  68. 


The  rulers  in,  131. 

In  Egypt,  262. 

Description  of,  in  Greece,  816,317,  sq. 

Adverse  to  war,  321. 

Simple  manners  of,  in  Greece,  323, 

'     325. 

In  other  places,  346,  347. 

Unity  of  religion  in,  353. 

Universal  at  first,  503-512. 

Proved  by  "  Ancient  Law,"  504-512. 

Consequences  of,  507,  508. 
.  In  Rome,  509-511. 
PELASGIANS. 

Chief  characteristics  of  the,  280, 281. 

Language  of  the,  ibid. 

The,  merging  into  the  Hellenes, 281 

The,  not  idolaters  at  first,  281,  282. 

No,  inscriptions  remain,  284. 

Orpheus  must  have  been  a,  285. 

The,  superior  to  the  Hellenes  in 
point  of  religion  and  morality, 
300,  301. 

The,  analogous  to  the  Hindoos,  ibid. 

The,  were  Javanas  in  India,  301. 

The  doctrine  of  the.  analogous  to 
that  of  Hindostan,  ibid. 

The  primitive  conception  of  Jupiter 
essentially,  305. 

The,  were  not  barbarous,  306,  307. 

The,  must  have  passed  into  the  Hel- 
lenes, 307,  308. 

Description  of  the  houses  of  the, 
321-323. 

The,  did  not  worship  the  Nature- 
Powers,  308,  309. 

The,  Zeus  above  the  Olympian,  ibid. 

The,  had  a  real  priesthood,  310. 

Names  of  religious  ideas,  310.  311. 
.  The,  subsequently  adored  the  Na- 
ture-Powers, 308,  327,  328. 

Interest  of  Plato  for,  antiquity,  380. 
PELOPONNESUS. 

An'ipathies  and  divisions  of  Greeks 

in  the,  431-433. 
PERIODS. 

Stone,  bronze,  iron,  contradicted  by 
facts,  64.  6r>. 

Simultaneity  of  the  various,  exist- 
ing in  all  ages,  66. 
PHAETON. 

Myth  of,  according  to  the  Egyptian 

priests,  299. 
PHILOSOPHERS. 

The,  did  not  sufficiently  oppose 
idolatry,  337. 

Opposition  of,  to  sophists  not  suf- 
ficient to  save  Greece,  338. 


522 


INDEX. 


PHILOSOPHY. 

Greek,  different  from  that  of  India, 
363. 

Rationalism  in,  ibid. 

Usual  branches  of,  363,  364. 

Two  great  questions  of,  in  Greece, 
364. 

Those  questions  of,  settled  by  the 
Vedas  in  Hindostan,  ibid. 

AtheLtic  systems  of,  in  Greece, 
364. 

Ethics  in  Greek,  365. 

What  account  religion  made  of,  in 
Greece.  365. 

Satisfied  with  State  religion  in 
Greece,  366-368. 

Open  atheism  of  Greek,  368. 

Traditional,  in  Greece,  369. 

Traditional,  in  Greece  analogous  to 
many  doctrines  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, 386-892. 

Mosaic  derivation  of,  in  Greece  ac- 
knowledged by  Gladstone,  388- 
392. 

PH(ENICIA. 

Primitive  monotheism  in,  442,  443. 
PLATO. 

Doctrine  of,  on  the  name  of  Zeus, 
301-304. 

Doctrines  of,  not  all  traditional,  372, 
373. 

Proved  the  unity  of  God  from  the 
sensible  beautiful,  373. 

A  traditionalist  philosopher,  374. 

Doctrines  of,  in  metaphysics  derived 
from  others,  374,  375. 

Doctrines  of,  chiefly  derived  from 
Pythagoras,  375,  376. 

Intercourse  of,  with  the  Pythago- 
reans, 377. 

Intercourse  of,  with  Archytas,  379, 
380. 

Interest,  took  in  Pelasgic  antiquity, 
380. 

Expenses,  incurred  for  obtaining  an- 
cient information,  381. 

Derived  his  philosophy  from  "  sa- 
cred accounts  of  old  time,"  382. 

Received  thus  doctrines  fail  of  Chris- 
tian feeling,  383-385. 

Forgiveness   of  injury   taught  by, 

384,  385. 
POETRY. 

Egyptian,  characterized,  253, 254. 

Repudiated  by  Plato,  297. 

Sometimes  encouraged  by  Plato, 
ibid. 


POETRY,  HINDOO. 
Examples  of,  141.  142. 
More   like  our   own   than   that   of 

Greece  and  Rome,  143. 
Antiquity  of,  164. 
Age  of  the  Mahabharata.  168. 
Age  of  the  Ramayana,  169. 
Character  of  the,  of  the  Ramayana, 

169. 

Character  of  the,  of  the  Mahabha- 
rata, 170. 
POETS,  GREEK. 

Inspired  according  to  Plato,  394. 
On  the  doctrine  of  expiation. 
Why  the  doctrine  of,  on  expiation 

was  harsh,  40J5-407. 
Why,  thought  some  sins  inexpiable, 

404-410. 

Monotheism  of,  413-418. 
See  jEschylus  and  Hoiner. 
POETS,  LATIN. 

Derived  many  things  from  Greek 

poets,  418. 
Primitive  traditions  kept  by,  419, 

420. 
Lucretius  an  exception  ataong  the 

420. 
The,  announced  their  doctrine  as 

ancient, 
The  old  traditions  kept  by,  form  an 

under-current  of  literature,  420- 

423. 
POLYGAMY  IN  INDIA. 

How,  was  understood,  123. 
PROGRESS. 

Not  continuous  in  history,  Pref.  x, 

and  passim  thiyugh  the  book. 
A  gap  in,  in  the  palaeolithic  age,  74. 
Going  backwards,  122, 128, 148,  and 

passim. 
PROMETHEUS. 

Was  a  Pelasgian  of  the  first  migra- 
tion, 278. 

Supposed  to  have  rescued  the  Hel- 
lenes from  barbarism,  279,  280. 
The    myth    of,   misunderstood    by 

many,  394,  395. 
The  myth  of,  understood  of*  A  dam, 

396,  397. 
The  myth  of,  understood  of  Christ, 

396-401. 
See  JSschylus. 
PURANAS 
Old,  172. 

Age  of  the  existing,  ibid 
The,  very  inferior  to  the'Vedas,  172, 

173. 


INDEX. 


523 


Purport  of  the,  173. 
PYTHAGORAS. 

A  traditional  philosopher,  369. 

Had  travelled,  ibid. 

Had  received  the  doctrine  of  others, 

370. 
Connected  with   Orphic   traditions, 

ibid. 
The  philosophy  of,  a  protest  against 

rationalism,  ibid. 
Errors  of.  371. 
Admits   one  God,  yet  conforms  to 

the  State  religion,  371,  372. 
Decline  in  the  school  of,  ibid. 


QUATERNARY     EPOCH. 

lithic  Age. 


See    Palreo- 


RACES. 

Diversity  of,  source  of  division,  46, 
48,  49. 

Origin  of  the  diversity  of,  47, 49, 104. 

Diversity  of,  influenced  by  climate, 
54.55. 

Turanian,  degraded  by  a  curse,  89- 
91,  95,  96. 

Turanian,  called  Allophylian,  90. 

Uniformity  of  the  Turanian,  proved 
by  linguistic,  90-93. 

Proved  by  ancient  writers,  93. 

Priority  of  the  Turanian,  to  the 
Aryan  and  Semitic,  93-94. 

Hamitic.  identified  with  the  Tura- 
nian. 93-95. 

Mongolian,  identified  with  the  Ha- 
mitic, 96. 

The  Turanian,  not  savage,  97. 

High  and  low,  co-existing  every- 
where together,  disprove  the  uni- 
versal existence  of  primitive  bar- 
barism, 103.  104. 

Elevation  of,  impossible  without  ex- 
terior help,  104,  105. 

Origin  of  Aryan,  according  to  Strabo, 
111. 

See  Turanians  and  Semites. 
RAMAYANA.     See  Poetry,  Hindoo. 
RATIONALISM. 

In  Greece,  363. 
RELIGION. 

Coincidence  between  the  Hindoo 
and  Egyptian,  341-244. 

Did  the  Egyptians    receive   their, 


from  India  or  the  reverse,  245- 
249. 

Individualism  in  the  Hindoo,  176, 
177. 

Individualism  in  the  Egyptian, 265. 

Esoteric,  in  Egypt,  265,  sq. 

All  exterior  among  idolatrous  na- 
tions, 265,  2(i6. 

Degeneracy  of,  in  Hindostan.  See 
Hindoo  Religion. 

Degeneracy  of,  in  Egypt.  See  Egyp- 
tians. 

Degeneracy  of,  in  Greece.  See 
Greece. 

Primitive.     See  the  same  previous 

articles,  and  Semites. 
REVELATION. 

Primitive,  29-31.  . 

Weakened  by  differences  of  race, 
48,  49. 

Deprived  of  a  centre,  55,  56. 

The  cause  in  Egypt  of  prosperity 
and  civilization'  269,  270. 

Anterior  to  philosophy,  283,  284. 

Forming  always  an  under-current 
in  Greece  and  Italy,  362,  sq,  420- 
423. 

In  Turanian  countries, 
RISHIS. 

Who  were  the?  130,  131. 
RITUAL. 

Considerations  on   the,   of  ^ancient 

and  modern  religions,  186-188. 
RITUAL,  FUNEREAL. 

Description  of  the,  of  the  Egyptians, 
268,  269. 

Immortality  of  the  soul  proved  by 
the,  of  Egypt,  236. 

Quotations  from,  236.  337. 

Decline  of  religion  in  Egypt  proved 

by  the,  ibid. 
ROME. 

Was  the  first  to  think  of  establish- 
ing unity  in  her  empire,  57,  354. 


S. 

SCHfENI. 

Were  measures  of  distance,  258. 
Differed  in  various  districts  in  Egypt, 

25S,  2~)». 
SECTS  IN  INDIA.. 

Sect  of  Vishnu  in  opposition  »o  that 

of  Siva  in  Hindostan,  168,  167. 
SEMITES. 

The,   furnish    pcnnty   materials    to 
primitive  religious  history,  430. 


524 


INDEX. 


Idolatry  prevailed  among  the,  very 

early.  437. 
The  polytheism  of  the,  races  alike 

in  many  points,  ibid. 
No   clanship  in,   countries,   except 

among  the  Jews  and  Arabs,  438. 
Originally  all  the,  adored  the  same 

God,  444,  445. 
The  idolatry  of  the,  worse  than  that 

of  other  nations,  454,  455. 
The,  religiously  influenced  by  the 

Mosaic  rites,  456,  sq. 
The  debasement  of  the,  could  not 

have  existed  from  the  beginning, 

458. 
SIVA. 

First  origin  of  idolatry  in.  Hindo- 

stan,  166. 

Opposed  to  Vishnu,  167. 
Epoch  of  the  cult  of,  168,  sq. 
See  Trimourti. 

SOMA. 

Was  the  gacred  liquor  of  India,  120, 
121. 

The  horse  associated  with,  in  Hin- 
doo sacrifices,  136. 

Consecrated  also  in  the  religion  of 

Zoroaster,  185. 
STATE  RELIGION. 

Origin  of,  in  Greece,  365. 

A  consequence  of  freedom  of  inquiry 
in  Greece,  366,  367. 

Universal  in  Greece,  ibid. 
STONE  PERIOD. 

Discussed  and  disproved,64,65,66,s<?. 

See  Periods  and  Palaeolithic  Age. 
SUPERNATURAL. 

The,  denied  in  our  age,  477-479. 

The,  proved  by  human  aspirations, 
477,  478. 

The,  proved  by  facts,  478,  479. 

A,  agent  necessary  for  the  under- 
standing of  human  history,  480,-^. 

What  "  struggle  "  does  the,  suppose, 
481,  482. 

The,  of  primitive  times  proved  by 
that  of  Christianity,  482-486. 


T. 

TANTKAS. 

Object  of  the,  174, 175. 

Magic  of  the,  ibid. 
TIIOTH.     See  Hermetic  Books. 
TRADITIONS. 

Primitive  dogmas  contained  in  the 
original,  30. 


Facts  transmitted  by  the,  31. 

Rites  prescribed  by  the,  32. 

Universal.  33,  34,  ill.   . 

Becoming  we;tk,  48.  49. 

Oral,  replacing  writing  with- advan- 
tage, 100. 

Contained  in  history  and  monuments 
more  reliable  than  natural  history 
for  understanding  primitive  man, 
106,  107. 

Rites  of  old  religions  transmitted 
by,  187. 

On  a  Redeemer,  on  expiation,  on  the 
law  of  suffering,  etc.,  in  Greek 
poets.  See  /Eschylus. 

Tet  the  Greeks  in  general  were  de- 
prived of,  300. 

Primitive,  kept  by  Latin  poets,  418- 
420. 

Kept  by  Greek  philosophers.  See 
Plato,  Pythagoras,  and  Philoso- 
phy. 

Kept  in  Greece  and  Italy  formed  an 
under-current  of  an  old  literature, 
420-423. 

The  under-current  of  oH,  underrated 
by  modern  critics,  421,  422. 

TR  AN  SMIGR  ATION. 

Was  one  of  the  first  Hindoo  aberra- 

ti-ms,  147. 
Never  mentioned  in  the  Rig- Veda, 

147,  148. 

Was  an  exaggeration  of  truth,  149. 
Excesses  of  the  belief  in,  149. 
Belief  in,  anterior  to  that  of  absorp- 
tion in  God,  150. 
TRIMOURTI. 

Source  of  the  subsequent  idolatry 

in  Hindostan,  132. 
Origin  of  the,  138,  165. 
The,  flourished  later  than  the  sixth 

century  before  Christ,  168,  169. 
TRISMEGISTUS.     See  Hermetic  Books. 
TURANIANS. 

The,  appear  to  have  been  at  first 

barbarous,  458,  459. 
The,  identified  with  the  Hamites, 

460. 
Trilingual  inscriptions  of  the,  460, 

461. 
Opposition   of  Zarathustra   to   the, 

462. 

The,  were  merely  nomads,  462,  463. 
The,  enjoyed  patriarchal  manners, 

ibid. 
The.  belonged  to  the  pastoral  tribes, 

464. 


IXDEX. 


525 


The  religion  of  the,  can  be  known 
from  Chinese  annals,  466. 

The  religion  of  the,  as  known  from 
the  Chinese  books,  466-472. 

Philosophy  of  the,  analogous  to  Hin- 
doo philosophy,  473. 

The,  antiquities  scarcely  yet  studied, 
478-475. 

The  proper  way  to  study  antiqui- 
ties, ibid. 

See  Palaeolithic  Period  and  Chinese. 


UNIVERSAL  SOUL. 
The  doctrine  of  the,  the  cause  of 

pantheism  in  India  and  Egypt,260. 
UPANISHADS. 

The,  a  part  of  the  Vedas,  127. 
The,  not  more  recent  than  the  other 

parts  of  the  Vedas,  127. 
Distinction   between    the    old  and 

new,  129. 
No  discrimination  to  be  made  be 

tween  the,  and  the  other  parts  of 

the  Vedas,  130. 
The  best,  not  free  from  error,  146, 

149. 
Extracts  from  the,  ibid,  passim. 

V. 

VEDAS. 

First  study  of  the,  125. 

Synoptic  view  of  the,  127. 

Authors  of  the,  130. 

The,  supposed  to  be  revealed,  130. 

The,  written  before  idolatry,  132. 

Mixture  of  truth  and  error  in  the) 

152. 

Progress  of  error  in  the,  153. 
VEDANTA. 

Philosophy.    See  Hindoo  Philoso- 
phy- 
VILLAGES. 

Primitive,  in  India,  116-118. 
VISHNU.     See  Sects  in  India. 
VISTACPA. 

King  of  the  country  of  Zarathustra, 
179. 

W. 

WOMAN. 

State  of,  in  primitive  India,  120, 
121,  sq. 


WRITING. 

Not  absolutely  necessary  for  civili- 
zation, 100,  103. 

Many  nations  of  the  highest  antiqui- 
ty acquainted  with,  100,  102. 

Not  so  necessary  to  ancient  nations 
as  to  us,  103. 

Among  the  Egyptians,  207,  208. 

The  demotic,  more  recent,  208. 

Primitively, was  always  in  veree.314. 


Y. 

YACNA. 

The,  a  part  of  the  Zends  containing 
the  Gathas,  185. 


Z. 

ZARATHUSTRA. 
Real  age  of,  179,  180. 
The  doctrine  of.  a  reform,  180-186. 
The  doctrine  of,  was  not  the  source 

of  Judaism,  Christianity,  nor  of 

Mohammedanism,  182. 
The  doctrine  of,  not  so  easily  cor- 
rupted as  that  ol  the  Vedas,  183. 
The  doctrine  of,  called  Mazdeism. 

See  Mazdeism. 
Never  raised  to  godship,  190. 
ZARVANIAN  DOCTRINE. 
Character  of  the.  198,  199. 
Origin  of  the,  199. 
ZEXDS. 
Zarathustra  author  of   the    oldest 

part  of  the,  178. 

The,  not  Persian  books,  178, 179. 
The,  at  first  considered  as  spurious 

books,  180. 

The  style  of  the,  Vedic,  180,  181. 
Monotheism  taught  in  the,  181-185. 
The,  have  contributed  nothing  to 

Judaism  or  Christianity,  198. 
ZEUS. 

Signification  of  the  name  of,  301. 
Plato  derived  the  signification   of 

the  name  of,  from  Orpheus,  302- 

304. 
No  essential  difference  between  the 

original  Greek,  and  the  Roman 

Jupiter,  304,  305. 


J3Y  THE   £AME  AUTHOR. 


THE  IRISH  RACE, 

IN  THE 

PAST    AND    THE    PRESENT. 

BY 

REV.  AUG.  J.  THEBAUD,  S.  J. 
One  Volume  8vo,  Cloth  Extra,      -  $3.5O. 


OPINIONS   OF    THE  PRESS. 

4i  TO-DAY  we  give  welcome  to  one  of  the  most  remarkable  and  powerful 
books  on  Ireland  and  the  Irish  people  which  it  has  been  our  fortune  at 

any  time  to  peruse Reviewing  the  whole  past  history  of  the  Irish 

race,  in  connexion  with  their  present  condition  and  probable  future,  it 
endeavors  to  grasp  the  larger  and  higher  meaning  and  point  the  moral  of 
their  peculiar  history.  "With  some  of  the  ideas  which  receive  eloquent 
expression  from  the  reverend  author  we  do  not  find  ourselves  in  complete 
agreement ;  but  this  does  not  affect  our  estimate  of  the  general  merits  of 
what  is  really  a  noble  work,  and  one  of  the  highest  tributes  ever  paid  to 
the  viitues  and  the  heroism  of  the  Irish  race.  The  key-note  of  the  whole 
volume  may  be  found  in  the  extract  from  Dr.  Newman's  essay  on  the  office 
and  work  of  universities,  printed  by  Father  Thebaud  on  the  title-page  of  his 

work.    The  words  are  not  unfamiliar  to  Irish  readers It  is  so  loving 

and  so  bright  a  vision  of  Ireland  that  shines  before  the  eyes  of  the  authpr, 

and  tempers  every  page  of  the  volume  under  our  notice We  can  only 

say  in  conclusion,  that  we  believe  the  book  well  calculated  to  render  true 
service  to  that  race  whose  past  history  the  writer  has  studied  so  sympa- 
thetically, and  in  whose  future  he  has  manifested  so  loving  an  interest."- 
DubMn  Nation. 

"  From  many  passages  in  this  volume  it  is  pretty  evident  by  what 
standard  Father  Thebaud  judges  the  Irish,  and  what  rank  among  races 
he  gives  them.  A  nation  is  great  precisely  in  so  far  as  it  is  heroically  and 
heartily  Catholic;  Ireland  is  greatest  because  her  Catholicity  is  the  noblest 
and  most  heroic  that  the  ages  have  seen.  Father  Thebaud  does  not 
mince  matters  nor  stop  half-way.  His  estimate  of  Ireland  is  as  high  ns 
Mr.  Aubrey  de  Vere's.  For  him  she  is  not -merely  Christian  as*a  matter 

of  fact,  but  Christian  as  a  matter  of  predestination The  idea  is  not 

a  new  one,  but  the  author  expands  it  with  such  a  vastness  of  learning,  aud 


illumines  it  with  such  a  brilliancy  of  thought,  that  he  may  be  fairly  con- 
sidered as  having  made  it  its  own We  must  express  our  admiration 

for  the  masterly  manner  with  which  the  task  is  achieved Perhaps 

we,  who  are  Irish,  feel  a  kind  of  regret  that  Ireland's  most  triumphant 
justification  is  not  the  work  of  an  Irishman.  But  the  regret  is  scarcely 
reasonable.  In  loyalty  to  the  Church,  and  in  sacrifice  for  the  Church's 
honor,  the  Irish  people  and  the  society  of  Jesus  are  as  brethren ;  and  Ire- 
land can  afford  to  receive  a  favor  from  a  child  of  that  gallant  nation  for 
which  she  spared  not  her  own  blood  at  Fontenoy." — Brooklyn's  Catholic 
Review. 

"It  is  refreshing  to  meet,  in  these  days  of  superficiality  and  flippancy, 
with  a  book  from  an  author  who  thinks,  and  has  mastered  his  subject. 
Father  Thebaud  has  here  given  us  a  genuine  book,  solid  and  erudite, 
really  profound  and  instructive,  full  of  intense  interest  to  many  millions 
of  American  citizens,  and  of  the  greatest  value  to  the  philosophy  of  history. 
At  last  something  like  justice  has  been  done  to  the  Irish  character  by  a 
writer  not  of  Irish  birth  or  descent.  The  author  has  not  indeed  given  us 
a  full  history  of  the  race  or  of  Ireland,  but  he  has  given  us  the  key  to*  Irish 
history,  and  introduced  order  into  what  has  seemed  to  us  hitherto  a 
chaotic  mass  of  dry  details,  by  setting  forth  clearly  and  distinctly  the 
principles  and  causes  in  which  they  originate,  and  which  explain  them. 
....  Aside  from  a  few  questions,  we  agree  with  the  author.  His  book  is 
a  great  book,  of  solid  and  conscientious  learning,  gravely  and  chastely 
written.  We  have  been  both  charmed  and  instructed  by  it." — Brown- 
son's  Review. 

"  In  its  higher  philosophical  and  analytical  relations  this  book  displays 

great  ingenuity,  thorough  research,  and  close  thought The  primitive 

civilization  of  the  race,  its  early  reception  of  Christianity,  its  steadfast 
adherence  to  Catholicity,  its  stubborn  and  successful  resistance  to  the  in- 
solent power  of  England,  are  carefully  reviewed  and  greatly  glorified. 
The  author  is  proud  of  the  fact  that  the  Irish  absorbed  and  assimilated 
every  race  which  invaded  the  soil  except  the  Scotch,  who  established  them- 
selves in  the  North  of  Ireland,  and  whilst  he  is  not  blind  to  the  defects  in 
the  Irish  character,  and  the  weakness  of  the  eailier  clan  system,  he  em-  . 
phasises  the  virtues  of  the  rjce  in  warm  terms.  The  Irish  were  not  .a 
nation  until  they  were  made  such  by  their  devotion  to  Catholicism.  The 
attempts  jnf  the  English  government  to  drive  the  Church  from  the  soil, 
knit  the  families  together  and  healed  the  intestine  feuds  of  the  beautiful 
island. 


"The  chapter  on  'Moral  Force'  is  interesting,  as  showing  the  sole 
means  relied  upon  by  the  author  to  remedy  even  the  greatest  wrong.  He 
strongly  opposes  all  revolutionary  methods,  and  relies  upon  agitation  and 
the  moral  force  of  public  sentiment  alone,  to  redress  the  grievances  ot 
Ireland. 

"Under  the  strong  light  of  this  volume,  the  Irish  race  display  in  strik- 
ing relief  the  Christian  virtues  of  fortitude,  patience,  and  resignation ; 
challenging  our  admiration  of  its  noble  qualities,  and  awakening  our 
sympathy  by  the  rehearsal  of  terrible  misfortunes  consequent  upon  its 
worse  than  enslaved  condition." — Albany  Argus. 

"This  volume  shows  a  vast  amount  of  research  in  its  preparation,  and 
evinces  ripe  scholarship.  Its  scope  is  more  enlarged  than  a  mere  history. 
....  The  main  facts  which  form  the  basis  of  discussion  may  be  briefly 
summed  up :  Ireland  had  an  ancient  history  and  literature  which  showed 
the  Irish  race  to  be  superior  to  others  of  Celtic  origin.  National  charac- 
teristics have  been  preserved  without  considerab'e  change,  by  virtue  of 
inherent  strength.  Ireland  resisted  conquest  except  by  Christian  mission- 
aries from  Rome,  down  to  the  time  of  the  wars  with  England.  It  re 'used 
to  adopt  mediaeval  feudalism.  The  philosophies  of  Greece  and  Rome 
were  kept  from  the  schools  of  the  nation,  to  the  peace  and  great  advan- 
tage of  the  people.  Ireland  did  not  accept  the  revival  of  learning  in 
Europe,  which  resulted  in  a  tendency  towards  Paganism.  Finally  it  was  the 
firm  champion  of  the  Catholic  Church  against  Protestantism,  when  all 
of  northern  Europe  was  in  rebellion. 

"  Says  the  author:  'The  Irish  was  the  only  northern  nation  which,  to  a 
man,  opposed  the  terrible  delusion,  and,  at  the  cost  of  all  that  is  dear, 
waged  against  it  a  relentless  war.' 

".  .  .  .  The  work  is  sure  of  a  foremost  place  in  church  and  secu'ar 
history  by  virtue  of  its  great  ability  in  both  a  literary  and  historical  point 
of  view."— Troy  Times. 

"  Very  recently,  through  the  kindness  of  a  friend,  we  were  permitted  to 
glance  over  Father  Thebaud's  late  contribution  to  history  and  literature  in 
his  '  Irish  Race,'  and  we  concluded,  before  reading  other  favorable  notices, 
that  the  Jesuit  Father  had  given  to  the  world  the  most  admirable  hi.<to-y 
we  have  seen  of  the  wonderful  people  whose  character,  sufferings,  nnd 
mission  he  has  endeavored  to  portray." — Louisville  Catholic  Advocate. 


Sent  by  matt  post-paid  011  receipt  of  the  price. 

For  Sale  by  D.  &  J.  SADLIER  &  CO,  31  Barclay  St.,  New  York. 


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